Economy and knowledge should go hand-in-hand: NBT chairman

Dependra Pathak, special commissioner and chief spokesperson, Delhi Police, in his keynote address, highlighted the role of publishers in engaging young minds for maintaining social orderliness. He urged Ficci to collaborate with Delhi Police in engaging publishers to create material in the form of storybooks, comics and cartoons to educate people on crime curbing, road safety, traffic rules and also on safety of women, senior citizens and children.

He suggested that Ficci could consider formation of a working group on devising possible measures towards curbing crime and making society a much better place to live in.

Baldeo Bhai Sharma, chairman, NBT India, in his keynote address, said that knowledge economy is beneficial for developmental and societal change at large, as it will change the mindset of people. He emphasised on the role of publishers and said use of books and publishing materials will act as a medium towards initiation of a crime free society. He further urged Ficci to create similar platform for Hindi language publishing so that the message could reach to larger population and could be adopted by common people.

Renowned author Surender Mohan Pathak, delivering the plenary keynote address on ‘The future of Indian pulp fiction’ outlined the role that pulp paper publishing played in 1050s and 60s in popularising Indian literary work, especially Hindi language books, among masses. He said that Hindi language publication could reach to common man and became a part of all the strata the society because of the economy of production provided by pulp. While talking about the bright future the English language pulp fiction, he shared his concerns towards diminishing Hindi language publishing due to decreasing readership and number of publishers and authors.

In his luncheon keynote address, Christopher C Doyle, author and CEO coach, highlighted that Indian mythology is a fertile ground for creativity and readers are inclined to know more on what had really happened in the past. He emphasised on the fact that the young minds have the curiosity to know about the past and are open to exploring the cultural perspectives. He was of the opinion that we can link our lessons of Indian mythology with our problems and dilemmas in our real life.

Ratnesh Jha, co-chair, Ficci Publishing Committee and managing director, Cambridge University Press, briefed the audience about the progress made by the Ficci publishing Committee in terms of its contribution in creation of Knowledge economy. He stressed on copyright playing an important role in knowledge economy. He expressed his concerns towards impact of changed tax regime after implementation of GST on publishing value chain. He also highlighted the value created by the books of private publishers. He urged all the stakeholders to come forward and create value for publishing industry and society at large by using Ficci platform.

Urvashi Butalia, chair, Ficci Publishing Committee and founder, Zubaan, welcomed the delegates and praised Ficci for organising the seventh edition of its annual PubliCon event. She also mentioned of the initiative taken by Ficci Publishing Committee to felicitate best literary work on various categories through Ficci PubliCon Awards.

Over 300 delegates from various government agencies, CXOs from publishing, authors, illustrators, publishing service providers, marketing managers, and others attended the programme.