Vijayawada, Jan 1 (UNI) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu alongwith Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu inaugurated the 29th edition of Vijayawada Book Festival at PWD Swarajya Maidan ground here on Monday.
After inaugurating the festival, the Vice President and Mr Chandrababu Naidu went round and watched the book stalls.
Later, speaking on the occasion, Mr Venkaiah underlined the need of protecting the mother tongue Telugu. “The mother tongue should be protected to protect the identity of our culture and tradition. Books play a significant role in Indian culture and tradition. Goddess Saraswathi Devi represents the education and books” he said, and described the Book Festival and a sacred festival.
He said that despite Parliament Session was going on, he attended the inauguration event of the Book Festival as he has enormous affection for books. The Vice-President thanked the Chief Minister for his assurance to consider announcing the year 2018 as Telugu Language protection year.
The Chief Minister regretted that the scope for writing in Telugu is coming down due to advent of computers. Mr Chandrababu Naidu said that the government would declare the year 2018 as “Telugu Pari Rakshana” year.
He assured the Book Festival Society to extend all kind of help to their mission of promoting and reading of books.
CPI National Executive Member K Narayana, Ministers D Umamaheswara Rao, Kolu Ravindra, MP K Srinivas Nani, were among those who were present.
UNI DP CS 1400