The second edition of the Nagapattinam book festival ‘Nagai Sangamam,’ organised by the district administration in association with the Directorate of Public Libraries and the Book Sellers and Publishers Association of South India (BAPASI), opened at the Government Industrial Training Institute (ITI) campus near the District Collector’s Office on Friday.
Minister for Law S. Regupathy inaugurated the book festival and visited the stalls. Speaking at the event, he said nearly 50 publishers from across the State have put up 121 stalls in the book festival. The State government has made elaborate arrangements to accommodate over 50,000 books of various genres and languages.
“We have been learning continuously throughout our lives in different forms. Learning by reading books is an important tool to changing our lives. By reading books, one could gain an enormous amount of knowledge and experience. Buying books is not spending, rather it is an investment,” the Minister said.
Collector Johny Tom Varghese; Nagapattinam MP M. Selvaraj; Superintendent of Police Harsh Singh; N. Gowthaman, Chairman, Tamil Nadu Fisheries Development Corporation; U. Mathivanan, Chairman, Tahdco; Kilvelur MLA V.P. Nagai Mali among others participated in the inaugural function.
The organisers have planned to conduct seminars every evening with eminent Tamil scholars speaking on various topics. School and College students will stage their cultural programmes between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. The stalls will be open between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. on all days till September 11.
