FIP Annual Conference, new body formed

The Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP) recently organised their annual conference. Baldeo Bhai Sharma, chairman, National Book Trust, India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, was the chief guest in their evening programme. Dr Ashok Gupta, president, FIP, in his inaugural address, thanked Baldeo Bhai for gracing the occasion. He outlined the objectives of FIP and the support provided by NBT, India in organising conferences and other activities including book fairs. He also expressed his concern regarding delay in announcing National Book Promotion Policy. Goods and Services Tax (GST) was another major concern he highlighted.

“Delhi Book Fair has become a major event for Delhi/NCR and the FIP Awards have been honouring books for their production quality. Last year, we received around 1,100 books of which 85 were honoured,” he said. He also suggested that the New Delhi World Book Fair to be held in different states on rotation basis, to reach a wide audience.

Asoke K Ghosh gave the keynote address. He focused on the ‘Make in India’ concept, which is not new for Indian publishing industry. But, he expressed concern that publishers are not happy/ satisfied because publishing is not included in top 25 industries for ‘Make in India’ field, even though it is Rs 17,900 crore industry, growing at 13 percent annually. He also talked about digitisation and e-book stores. He said that print and pre media offer a bigger opportunity. Even though exports in publishing industry are good and publishers are following ‘Make in India’ concept, but a significant leap is needed. Ghosh also mentioned mergers/acquisitions happening in the industry like Penguin and Random House, S. Chand acquiring few ones, to name a few.

FIP Annual Conference, new body formed Ramesh K Mittal, hony general secretary, gave the vote of thanks. Prior to the evening programme new office bearers and executive committee members were unanimously elected for the year 2015- 2016. These included Dr Ashok Gupta – president, HK Rastogi – vice-president (North), Bimal Kumar Dhur – vice-president (East), Dinesh Goyal – vice-president (South), Anil Gala – vice-president (West), Ramesh K Mittal – hony general secretary, Ateev Malik – hony joint secretary, and RC Govil – hony treasurer. The executive committee members include Asoke K Ghosh, Anand Bhushan, Amar Nath Varma, Raj Kumar, NK Mehra, Naveen Gupta, Bikash De Niyogi, Virender Kumar Arya, Umesh Chand Aggarwal, Narender Kumar Verma, Himanshu Gupta and Monica Malhotra Kandhari.