Balram Sadhwani has recently retired from his position as regional director, UBSPD (Universal Books Stall Publishers' Distributors), Bengaluru. He joined UBSPD in 1967 and interestingly, it has been his first and only job. “I joined UBSPD after my B.Com Honors from Sri Ram College of Commerce. Later, I did my MA in Economic & Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing & Sales Management during my stay in Delhi office. Every day spent at UBSPD gave me lot of inspiration and am proud to say that I had the best of people to work with,” told Sadhwani.

“My stay in the organisation has been a big learning which got me recognition as vice president of the Federation of Publishers’ & Booksellers’ Association in New Delhi and president of the Bangalore Booksellers & Publishers Association,” he concluded. Balram now looks forward to spend more time with his family and of course his grandchildren.

Madras Book Club recently organized a discussion on the book ‘Faith and Freedom- Gandhi in History’ by Prof. Mushiral Hasan, former vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia University, New Delhi. N. Ravi, former editor of 'The Hindu' and TN Murari, a novelist released the book on the occasion.

While addressing the audience, Ravi’s first question was, “Why one more book on Gandhi? He added that it happened to be the question that the book starts with. Instead of being a superfluous account, it is a very objective approach towards Gandhiji’s life. It traces the other activities in his life that encompassed Dalits, uniting Hindus and Muslims and so on. “But is Gandhi outdated today? Not exactly, because his principals offer new perspectives to the present generation,” he added.

TN Murari revealed that the book is full of interesting anecdotes collected from the London Library of Research. The book is not a biography but illuminates the role of Gandhi’s associates in politics.

–Janani Rajeswari S

Today, the publishing industry is witnessing many challenges ranging from rampant piracy, online consumption patterns and the emergence of the internet both as a driver of business as well as an avenue for piracy. To deliberate upon various nuances of legal framework in the context of the book publishing industry, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), in partnership with Association of Publishers in India (API) recently organized a seminar on ‘Legal aspects of the book publishing industry’ in New Delhi. With in-depth presentations by several prominent speakers, the seminar witnessed over one hundred delegates from the book publishing organizations, enriching their understanding about the legal complexities and the appropriate ways to deal with.

The keynote address at the seminar was delivered by Youngsuk “YS” Chi, president, International Publishers Association and chairman, Elsevier, USA. The seminar was also addressed by Urvashi Butalia, chairperson, FICCI Publishing Committee and director, ‘Zubaan’; PM Sukumar, president, API and CEO, HarperCollins Publishers India and Vikrant Rana, managing partner, SS Rana & Co. On the occasion, the ‘FICCI - SS Rana ‘Publishers’ Law Book was also released.

One of the most important issues discussed during the seminar was ‘impact of parallel imports on the publishing industry’. Moderated by Saikrishna Rajagopal, legal counsel, Association of Publishers in India, the session also examined the scope and potential of collective reprographic licensing in India, particularly in the context of international expertise and the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.

A panel discussion - moderated by GR Raghavender, registrar of copyrights and director, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of HRD, Government of India focussed on ‘Indian Copyright Amendment Act 2012 and its effect on the publishing industry’.

In a session on ‘E-publishing in India – understanding the legal framework’, the challenges regarding digitization and e-publishing were discussed. It was moderated by Kailash Balani, managing director, Balani Infotech.

With the installation of multiple numbers of sheet-fed offset presses comprising 24 printing units and four digital presses with seven printing engines, Saurabh Printers have literally established themselves as 24x7 facility offering book printing services to the leading publishers of India. Established in the year 1991, with an initial investment of approx Rs 30 lakh, Saurabh Printers today stands as a print company with an investment of over Rs 30 crore. Starting their operations with just one single-colour Heidelberg offset and two-colour Dominant 725 presses, this progressive company today boasts of having 24 printing units, with appropriate post-press equipments fulfilling the need of paperback and hard case books of many leading publishers of NCR and few located in western and southern regions of India.

At Saurabh Printers, thirty percent books so produced go to the publishers with hard case and remaining seventy percent with paper back. To cater the need of publishers meeting their ever increasing demands, the printing and binding activities run uninterrupted round the clock. As per Vinod, “Even after running the facility round the clock, we still need to outsource some of our jobs to cope up with the work load. We have no option but to expand further by adding new cequipments.” Saurabh Printers are now all set to install their first web offset machine which will take care of all additional workload.

“Book publishing trade per se is going into new avatar, where in generally it can be divided into three categories based on precise print run. Category one can be termed as up to 300 copies, second one from 300 to 2,000 copies and the third one 2001 copies onwards,” told Vinod. Saurabh Printers is getting ready accordingly by equipping themselves appropriately. As of now, they are fully equipped to cater to second category mentioned above. Installation of web offset press will cater the need of third category. As far as first category is concerned, Saurabh Printers has already taken initiative and as per Saurabh Gulati, the installation of Xerox 4112 mono, Xerox 700 digital colour press, Xerox Docutech 6180 excellence plus mono and Xerox Nuvera 288 EA perfecting production system is their first step toward this.

Digital printing combined with a streamlined workflow is the ideal combination for printing short-run Books on Demand. The Books on Demand solutions at Saurabh printers enable the creation of digital books for short runs. The key digital presses deployed at Saurabh Printers include:

Xerox 4112 Mono Light Production Printer: They started their digital Books on Demand with the Xerox 4112 Printer, which is the entry level light medium production offering which delivers versatility and functionality for small BOD Publishing needs. Their high speeds and expansive media capacity ensure that they can handle the large volumes required for applications like books. The press also offer the excellent imaging quality and media flexibility needed to create the look and feel readers demand, including exceptional rendering of pictures in halftone. And the Xerox 4112/4127 range has now been replaced with upgraded and the latest Xerox D Series mono print engines (D95A / D110 /D125) which offer a range of production speeds from 100 ppm to 125 ppm respectively. These printers come with additional feeding & finishing choices so one can print professionally finished volumes time after time, including the Booklet Maker Finisher, SquareFold Trimmer Module and the GBC Advanced Punch.

Xerox 700 Digital Color Press: The Xerox 700 Digital Color Press is the ideal solution to get one started in the digital production printing market with profitable applications such as full colour catalogues, photo books, and manuals. The press was launched keeping in the mind the need for a pocket friendly solution! It produces sharp colour graphics and crisp text at up to 2400x2400 dpi resolution. It also helps reduce costs with the first production-capable printer that makes it easy to get started in digital production printing. The Xerox 700 can print up to 300 gsm for 13” x 19” paper size. With the special EA toner, this printer prints without any fuser oil and hence making it most suitable for a good lamination on the 4 colour book covers.

Xerox DocuTech 6180 Excellence Plus: Saurabh Printers upgraded their production capacity by adding the DT 6180 digital production press. This monochrome digital press prints at a high speed of 180 ppm A-4 sheets per minute resulting in a print capacity of 2.5 lacs A4 impressions per 24 hours! With the extra-large sheet size of 364 mm x 487 mm (14.33” x 19.17”) results in higher productivity and lower production costs by permitting four-up, duplex 24 cm x 17 cm, Royal Octavo and Demy Octavo book or manual pages, which is twice the number of impositions possible in standard A3 workflows.

Xerox Nuvera 288 Digital Press: With the growing strong demand for Short runs Book on Demand titles, Saurabh group added another feather in their cap with the Xerox Nuvera 288 duplexing engine. This is an easy-to-use, flexible system, built on a strong foundation of exceptional image quality, speed, efficiency and productivity to get the business growing. The printer offers an incredible image quality of 4800 x 600 dpi and up to 156 lpi, plus the cost and time efficiencies associated with digital. The Xerox Nuvera 288 is designed with a duty cycle of up to 7,800,000 images per month!

Many publishers have started taking advantages of this facility, but Vinod and other technical team members of the company have been seen discussing with more or less all inkjet digital printing machine manufacturers in India and overseas. They are in the process to upgrade their digital printing facility with top of the line equipments which can perfectly handle indigenously manufactured printing papers.

The production facilities of Saurabh Printers today are spread into three locations which include: one in Okhla (South of Delhi) and two in Noida. As of now, their shop floor and other ancillary production processes are operational covering an area of around 32,000 sq ft. “To consolidate all our activities under one roof, we shall soon be moving to a newly built single location in Greater Noida. In that brand new building, there would be an operational facility over 56,000 sq ft,” conveyed Vinod Gulati, managing director, Saurabh Printers. With a staff strength of around 400 individuals, Saurabh Printers with its group companies, believe that from new financial year starting from April 2013, the services offered to publishers community will improve manifold.

Their offset press facility houses sheetfed presses comprising 5 colour Heidelberg F 102 CPC (720x1020 mm); 4 colour Heidelberg SM 102V (720x1020 mm) and Heidelberg MOV (480x650 mm) machines. They also have 2 colour Heidelberg SOSZ (710x1020mm), Heidelberg SODZ (640x1020 mm) and Heidelberg SORMZ (520x740 mm) machines besides seven single-colour Heidelberg machines.

With an experience of over three decades in book production, Vinod was engaged with well known book printer Rekha Printers for around 13 years, where he handled all areas of book production, specially post press. Personally he is better known as an ‘expert in binding’ amongst printer community. Even today, they offer binding services on contract basis to many printers who do not have enough in-house post press facility. Saurabh Printers are well-equipped in their post press operations, housing seven folding machines, five perfect binding machines, six section sewing machines and over half a dozen paper guillotines.

Few publishers availing the services of Saurabh Printers include Oxford University Press, Penguin, Taylor & Francis, Kogan Page, Thieme-A and Anthem Press.