CM wants to hold Book Festivals in all Towns

Book festivals should be held in all cities to make TN a revolutionary and intellectual state as knowledge is the bulwark of all and books are elixir of rejuvenation, Chief Minister MK Stalin said. 

Declaring open Erode Book Festival, arranged by Makkal Sindhanai Peravai, through online from Chennai, he said ''I accept the invitation of Peravai president T Stalin Gunasekaran and open this expo with pleasure on the basis that we both have not only the same names but also have the same principles. 

Gunasekaran published a book titled 'Viduthalai Velviyil Tamilnadu' in 1999 which compiled the contributions of TN in freedom struggle. He arranges the book festival in Erode for eighteenth year so that all should appreciate his tireless passion for Tamil. Such festival should be held in all towns, because it is a festival of knowledge. 

''I got the opportunity to inaugurate a book fair organized by the South Indian Booksellers and Publishers Association in Chennai. Following Chennai, only a few other districts are conducting such expos. 

I have ordered that such book fairs should be held in all districts and for this year, Rs 4.96 cr has been allocated for it. It was decided to hold a book fair in Chennai in January. 

But, the date has been changed due to the spread of Corona. As the publishers suffered losses, the government offered Rs 50 lakh  as compensation in addition to regular aid of Rs 75 lakh.

 Following this, the government has also given approval for setting up a permanent book park, which has been a long-standing demand of the publishers. Inaugurating the Chennai Book Fair in the year 2007, the then CM Karunanidhi  announced a biggest library and it was the  Anna Centenary Library. Similarly, the present rule is building a library in the name of Karunanidhi at a cost of Rs 114 crores.

Listing out various schemes of the government to honour writers, he said ''I would like to proudly state that the government is also publishing a large number of books to compete with the publishing houses. 

635 books out of 875 books published by Tamil Nadu Textbook Society in 1960-70 were republished for the past  one year and the best works of Tamil have been translated and published in English, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada languages. 

Such translation work is going on   for 'Maperum Tamil Kanavu', a book related to Anna, in English, Vaikam Struggle in Malayalam, Karunanidhi's Thirukkural in Telugu, short stories of D. Janakiraman in Kannada.

 Caldwell's 'Dravidiam or Comparison of South Indian Family of Languages' has been translated by linguist B.Ra.Subramaniam. It has been published by the government. We are going to bring Sangha literary books as new edition. 

Various books from other languages ​​are being brought to Tamil as well. Out of 100 Children's Literature Books, planned to be released, 27 have been released so far.

Late CM Anna wanted to have a library in all homes. So, the culture of exchanging books when meeting each other should grow and youths should read more to remove myths in society, he advised. Peravai president lawyer Stalin Gunasekaran and many dignitaries attended the event.