35th book fair of Malda to be named after late scholar Bidhushekhar Shastri

Malda: The centre stage of the 35th book fair of Malda will be named after late Bidhushekhar Shastri, scholar of Malda. The fair will continue from January 8 to 15 at the ground adjacent to Malda Youth Hostel on the Bandh Road under the English Bazar Police Station.

Sudeshna Roy, chairperson of the West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights will inaugurate the event on January 8 after a colourful rally organised with students from various schools and colleges and other related sections of the society. The decision was taken in the preparatory meeting on Sunday at the “Boi Bagan” (book garden) in the district library in English Bazar.

Shastri, who was a renowned Sanskrit scholar and very close to Rabindranath Tagore, originally hailed from Harishchandrapur in Malda.

He was awarded ‘Deshikottama’ by Visva Bharati University and the title of Mahamahopadhyaya was conferred upon him by the Government of India in 1936. The other stage of the book fair is named after late Shakti Chattopadhyay, poet and late Achintya Sengupta, one of the librarians in Malda.

Further, the village book fair to be held in February will be organised in Manikchak block. The book grants for the rural, town and district library this year are Rs 15,000, Rs 18,000 and Rs 40,000 respectively.

There will be a total of 160 stalls in the book fair, 40 short from the previous year’s edition. Among these, 120 will be book stalls and the other 40 for various other purposes. The publicity of the social welfare projects of the state government will also be done through the book fair. Like the previous year, this time also the entry will be free.

Nitin Singhania, District Magistrate Malda, said: “We shall work towards making the event more attractive and entice the people, especially the young ones towards books.”