Urban development and municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim inaugurated the 10th New Town Book Fair and 8th National Poetry Festival on Thursday.
Mr Hakim said book fairs were being held across the state to create awareness among the youngsters to develop reading habits. Tapas Chatterjee, poet Subodh Sarkar, litterateur Pracheta Gupta were present among others at the inaugural session.
New Town Book Fair Committee felicitated Dr Purnendu Bikas Sarkar, recipient of Ananda Puraskar in 2023 for his original work on Tagore. Dr Sarkar, a well known eye surgeon had brought out the Gitabitan archive where a person could get all the Tagore songs in a single DVD. It gave the background of songs, their dates, place and year of composition.
Dr Sarkar said the world was fast moving towards digital platforms and steps should be taken now to utilise this platform. Currently he is working on a project that will change our old habit of listening to songs.
The New Town Book Fair Committee has decided to facilitate poet Sharmila Roy, essayist Prasanta Maji and researcher Anup Matilal.
During the book fair seminars and symposia are held and all well known publishers give their stalls.
Many elocutionists from different parts of Bengal and other states come to take part in the poetry festival. It may be mentioned that chief minister Mamata Banerjee has set up Kabita Academy and in different programmes organized by the state government elocutionists take part.