Discover a world of possibilities in publishing @ the Indian Publishers Conference

The Indian publishing industry is the life of the education system, celebrating a journey of knowledge and empowerment.The industry currently stands at 82,000 crores and is set to surpass the 1,00,000 crores by the year 2024-2025 with about 24,000 publishers and approximately 1,46,000 titles published each year. The FIP works with a collective vision to make India a book reading nation, enhance the functioning of National Libraries, work on book related policies, exports, legislative support to Copyright, digital formats to name a few.

Inauguration

In his welcome address, Ramesh K Mittal, FIP President, highlighted the importance of educators, publishers and authors who have collaborated to bring about excellence to the industry and the society as a whole. Honourable chief guest Smriti Zubin Irani, Minister of Women and Child, Minority Affairs, Government of India, stated that it is important to realise the challenges that the publishing industry faces. She emphasised the need to promote joy of reading in generations to come and to work collaboratively between publishers and readers to increase love for books and demand. While, Sunil Deodhar, National Secretary (BJP) emphasised the power of knowledge and the need to learn in mother tongue languages.

World of possibilities

India @ 2047: Role of Publishing in Nation Building: Ajay Pratap Singh, Director General, Raja Ram Mohan Roy Library Foundation, Kolkata said that readers requirement should be understood at state level and that the government will be investing in 2.5 Lakhs libraries across India. He said that children should be provided with a good learning environment.

SDG 4: Quality Education & New Education Policy delved on how publishers play a pivotal role. Darrin Farrant, Director, United Nations Information Centre in New Delhi felt the requirement for Inclusive,Assessable, Equitable – education for all. He further added learning should be child centric, holistic, and creative. While, Goldie Dhama, Partner-Regulatory Services, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP stated that NEP provides a multidisciplinary education and felt that vocational training is the need of the hour. Arvind Chaturvedi, Chancellor Dr CV Raman University highlighted the focus to upgrade skills and importance on training the teacher. This session explored the requirement of resources to be made accessible at different price levels, languages and models so that learning is more impactful.

Himanshu Gupta, Managing Director, S Chand Group, congratulated FIP on thier golden jubilee.

Significance of Copyright and Intellectual Property in Publishing: Piracy has deeply impacted the publishing industry, Prof (Dr) Unnat P Pandit, Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks said that Copyright and Intellectual Property in publishing plays an important role in strengthening the publishing sector and fosters creativity. Dr Yogesh Pai,Associate Professor (Law), National Law University Delhi added about fair use provisions, collective rights management and the importance of aggregated content being legally accessed.

Discussing the Impact of Artificial Intelligence in Publishing, Amit Rajput, Executive Director & Innovation Leader PwC India shared that for content to be valuable it needs to be irreplaceable and unique. Utpal Chakraborty, Chief Technology Officer, InteltieTechnologies, emphasised on the importance of data driven decision making in various aspects of publishing.Shreshth Shrivastav, AVP – Tech Mahindra, said that the role of AI is as an enabler.

Promoting Translations in Indian Regional Languages:

Dr K Sreenivasarao, Secretary Sahitya Akademi said that translations help is national building and integration. The current challenges faced are lack of translators and that many translations take place with the help of link languages. Ravi DeeCee, CEO, DeeCee Books stated the need to create an ecosystem for translations programmes to flourish and develop inter-language translations. Senthil Nathan, Founder, Ailaysa emphasised that it is important that promotions of translations should be a continuous activity with translation grants and government support. Partnership between publishers of various languages will make new paths and AI technologies will help in translating knowledge text.

Basant Rathore, Sr VP Strategic planning, Brand and Business development Jagran Group gave the significance of data by knowing your consumer. He felt that content creators should be aligned to both qualitative and quantitative aspect. Jose Borghino, Secretary- General, International Publishers Association stated what cannot be measured cannot be monetised.

Lt Col Yuvraj Malik in his panel Contribution of Publishers in making India a book reading nation highlighted the vital contribution of publishers in fostering a book-reading culture in India and building a knowledge society. Rajesh Aggarwal, IAS, Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Person with Disabilities discussed emerging technologies, digital platforms and new formats which are revolutionising the way content is created.

Organisers views

Asoke k. Ghosh, President Emeritus felt that the conference had exceeded his expectation and was a big success. “It got together people from different walks of life who with their vision, creativity, expert knowledge opened a new world of possibilities,” he said.

Shared Pranav Gupta Conference Director and Joint Secretary, “The convergence of the 50th anniversary of FIP, the culmination of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, the transition into Amrit Kaal, and the G-20 presidency, we feel it’s time to raise the voice of the Indian Publishing industry. We are aligned with GOI transformative initiatives such as Make in India, Skill India, and Digital India. We have attained self-reliance, and platforms like this conference unveil new avenues. Capitalizing on our strengths becomes imperative, utilizing them to their fullest extent. It is upon us to ensure that within the next 5 to 10 years, India rises to excellence.”