The 35th edition of Hyderabad Book Fair had a bustling start on Thursday, as hundreds of citizens queued up to enter the vast fair ground of NTR Stadium where the exhibition was inaugurated.
“Books are our best friends. The Telangana Armed Struggle, the Naxalbari Movement and the Separate Telangana movement were inspired by books. Change in society comes only through books,” said Minister for Culture and Tourism V. Srinivas Goud while inaugurating the fair.
“No technology can diminish the importance of books. Cellphones can be misused but books can never be misused,” he said, as hundreds of school children listened to his short speech.
This year’s edition is a bigger one with 340 stalls as against 270 stalls last year, said the organisers of the exhibition. An array of book sellers from across the country have stocked their shelves in Hyderabad.
In the evening, IT principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan inaugurated a stall of the Digital Media Wing of Telangana Government that is launching ‘Telangana Digital Repository’. “We are doing the groundwork for a full-fledged digital repository where information about the region will be available to future generations. This is like a sounding board before the full rollout,” informed director of Digital Media Dileep Konatham.
The book fair will run till January 1, 2023. It will be open between 2 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. on weekdays and 1 p.m. and 9 p.m. on weekends and holidays.
