Books have their own importance - Union Minister

Mahesh Chandra - Delhi

- The format of the book fair may have changed but the importance of books remains

- Writers bring change in the society - SS Awasthi

- Writers honoured with Vagishwari Samman

New Delhi. Union Minister of State for Road and National Highways and Ministry of Corporate Affairs Harsh Malhotra said that the format of the book fair has changed a lot from before. Today, with the advent of mobile and internet, people's interest in books may have decreased, but still books have their own importance. He said this while presenting the first Vagishwari Samman to writers on behalf of Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), Authors Guild of India and Indian Reprographic Writers Organization at the Delhi Book Fair organized at Bharat Mandapam today. On this occasion, FIP President Naveen Gupta, General Secretary of Authors Guild of India Dr. SS Awasthi and senior officials of ITPO were present.

On this occasion, Harsh Malhotra honoured 17 writers/journalists for their outstanding contribution in the field of literature. The awardees include writers Dr. Divik Ramesh, Prof. Harish Arora, Savita Chaddha, Dr. Harisingh Pal, Dr. Virendra Shekhar, Prof. Sudhir Pratap Singh, B.S. Bagla, Rakesh Pandey, Atul Prabhakar, Ms. Sunita Pant Bansal, Mahendra Sharma, Dr. Kamlesh Bhatt Kamal, journalists Sanjeev Gupta, Amit Kumar, Surendra Pandit, writers Manas Ranjan Patra and Dr. Sandeep Kumar Sharma. On this occasion, Dr. Awasthi said that this award (Baghishwari Award) is being given to all these authors for their remarkable contribution in the enrichment of literary, intellectual, linguistic and cultural values, and this award will be given every year. He said that writers bring change in the society. If there are no books, the society will not progress, so today writers were honoured. Naveen Gupta said that this tradition of honouring writers will continue in future as well.