Srinagar: The first book fair organised on a very large scale in Srinagar, ‘Chinar Book Festival’ is going to start from August 17. This information was given by Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Dr. Bilal Mohiuddin Bhat, IAS in a press conference held at the Winter Hall of SKICC.
He said, “The Chinar Book Festival, organised from 17 to 25 August, will be the first biggest book fair in the Kashmir Valley, which is being organised in collaboration with the National Book Trust, India, National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL) and District Administration Srinagar. There has been no festival of such a large scale in Srinagar for a long time, so this is a great opportunity for the people of Srinagar, where readers will be able to participate in various programmes related to literature, art and culture amidst books. These programmes will be organised in three parts.
From 10 am to 1 pm, workshops on calligraphy, storytelling, caricature, dying competition, art workshop, slogan writing competition, puppet craft, Vedic mathematics in play and many other creative writings will be organized for children. From 2 pm to 4 pm, career oriented workshops will be organized for the youth.
They will get an opportunity to talk to eminent litterateurs on art, literature and culture. So far, more than 50 thousand children have registered for this mega event. Dr. Bilal urged the people of Srinagar to come to the Chinar Book Festival and make the biggest festival of the valley a success. He also informed that five free buses will be run from Ghantaghar to SKICC to reach the book festival.
Speaking on the Chinar Book Festival, Yuvraj Malik, Director, National Book Trust, India said, “This book festival is from the people of the valley and for the people of the valley, in which readers will find more than 200 book stalls. Around 125 publishers are participating in the first Chinar Book Festival. Here the youth will get a chance to meet famous artists. Kashmir is the land of scholars and poets. Kashmir is heaven and books are also associated with heaven. This will also be the biggest book festival of Urdu literature till date, where readers will get more than 50 thousand Urdu books.
Along with this, readers will understand the culture here from the photo exhibition of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh organized by ICHR and will also be able to know about India’s development journey in space through the photo exhibition organized by ISRO keeping in mind the National Space Day. The director of NBT, India also said that one day is being made Bagless Day in all the schools of the country. If parents bring their children to the book fair on this day, it will be a different kind of experience for them.
In the Chinar Book Festival, writers will also get an opportunity to release their books. There will be a counter here, where there will be a discussion on how to get the books published. A camp of the National e-library will also be set up here, where readers will be able to enjoy reading more than a thousand books in 22 languages for free. This book festival, organised in five thousand square metres of SKICC on the banks of Dal Lake, will be held from 17 to 25 August from 11 am to 5 pm, entry to which will be free.
