Delhi chief minister kicks off NBT’s year long celebrations of Delhi centenary year

This is the first programme that I am attending in connection with the Delhi Centenary Year celebrations and I congratulate the NBT for taking the initiative and hope that others will follow suit, stated Sheila Dikshit, chief minister, Delhi while inaugurating an exhibition of paintings and NBT’s Wall Calendar based on it titled Reading Spaces. Appreciating the innovative concept of the exhibition and the idea of weekend book bazaars floated by NBT for the celebrations, the chief minister offered all help of the Delhi government for organizing these activities that NBT plans to organize during 2011.

Earlier, Satish Kumar, director, NBT, India welcomed the chief minister, distinguished artists, writers and publishers present on the occasion, while stating that NBT has tried to approach the centenary year celebrations from the perspective of book readers, book lovers and book creators and how they have contributed to the making of the cosmopolitan culture of Delhi. Farida M Naik, joint director, NBT, while giving out the broad outline of NBT’s year long celebrations pertaining to Delhi centenary year stated that NBT is introducing for the first time an innovative concept called ‘weekend book bazaars’ as being a metro city, readers do not get enough time to indulge in their hobbies. The first of such series of bazaars would be organized during the last weekend (Friday-Sunday) of March 2011. She informed that a special logo for the celebrations has been designed by the Trust and various other activities like seminars, exhibitions, talks etc would mark the celebrations.

Kumar Vikram, editor of the Trust, who compered the programme, shared with the audience the theme of the exhibition and proposed a vote-of-thanks. On this occasion many eminent artists who have contributed to the exhibition and the calendar were present, which included Jatin Das, Gopi Gajwani, Krishan Ahuja, Niren Sengupta, Niladri Paul, Kavita Nayar, Sudip Roy, Jai Zharotia, and Vasundhra Tewari-Broota.