The 32nd edition of the Vijayawada Book Festival began at Swaraj Maidan (PWD Grounds) here on Saturday.
The 11-day event being organised by the Vijayawada Book Festival Society (VBFS) has about 170 stalls compared to over 300 in the previous years and the allocated space is less than a fourth of the earlier editions.
Inaugurating it virtually, Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan said it was apt to quote the Telugu adage ‘Pustakam hasta bhooshanam’ meaning ‘a book is like an ornament in hand.’ “A book takes us into a world of knowledge, entertainment, and new thought-process and make us more knowledgeable,” he said, adding, “while in prison during the Emergency period and later on, I have availed the great resources for writing books such as Raana Pratap , Maru Bataas , Manasi etc. in Odiya.”
The literature on freedom struggles in other parts of the world helped the freedom movement take firm roots and spread across the country. “The late Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee once said ‘I owe all that credit, if any, only to book reading’,” the Governor said.
“As a writer and book lover, I strongly appeal to all parents to inculcate the habit of book-reading among children at a young age to empower them with knowledge as they grow up,” he said, adding “a child who reads will be an adult who thinks.”
Endowments Minister Velampalli Srinivas, Vijayawada (Central) MLA Malladi Vishnu, Mayor R. Bhagya Lakshmi, Vijayawada Book Festival Society president Manohar Naidu, secretary Lakshmiah, coordinator Vijay Kumar and others spoke.
