Vijayawada. January 02: Noted writer and cine artiste Gollapudi Maruti Rao inaugurated the 21st Book Exhibition being organised by the Vijayawada Book Festival Society at the PWD Grounds here this evening.
Speaking on the occasion, he said that he was proud to inaugurate the book festival because exactly 50 years 21 days ago he worked as a sub-editor in Indian Express Publications, Vijayawada.
Recalling his association with Vijayawada, Maruti Rao said that he always tells people that he is from Express because it is the place where he learnt the nuances of journalism. He described Vijayawada as home to several eminent journalists, including Mutnuri Krishna Rao and Narla Venkateswara Rao.
Describing Krishna district as the Mecca of publications, he said every writer can find a publisher here and said that his first book was published from Vijaywada.
He appealed to the District Collector and the Mayor to provide a good scanner to the city library to scan all valuable books.
Presiding over the meeting, District Collector Peeyush Kumar said that despite technology and media revolution, books were the strongest medium for disseminating knowledge. He said that he always carry’s a book to update his knowledge.
Noted Tamil writer Ponnilan, Mayor Ratnabindu and Vijayawada Book Festival Society president Ashok also spoke.
The venue of the book exhibition was named after publisher late Kappagantula Muralikrishna. The dais was named after Malladi Ramakrishna Sastry.
As many as 236 stalls, including publications of Cambridge University Press, Oxford, Telugu University and Telugu Akademi, were set up in the exhibition.
The centenary celebrations of Gopichand and Sri Sri would be organised at the exhibition from tomorrow. Book lovers padayatra would be organised from the Press Club to the exhibition on January 4 at 4 p.m.Competitions would be conducted for students on several issues and books would be given as prizes to the winners.
The society was also determined to organise the ten-day exhibition as a plastic- free event and promote paper bags to spread awareness among the people about the ill effects of plastic usage.
–Agencies