CHENNAI: The Chennai International Book Fair (CIBF) is scheduled to be conducted from January 16-18, announced Minister of School Education Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi at the Anna Centenary Library on Tuesday.
Speaking to media persons and audience during the event, he said, “As many as 24 countries participated in the CIBF held in 2023, and 365 MoUs were signed. Last year, 40 countries participated and 752 MoUs were signed. This year, we plan to sign 1,000 MoUs from at least 50 countries.”
As far as translations, books were translated from Tamil to Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Nepali, Malay, Albanian, English, French, German, Italian, Sinhala, Spanish and Turkish. And to Indian languages such as Assamese, Bengali. Bhojpuri. Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada. Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Telugu and Urdu. Through the MoUs signed for translations, 160 books were translated from Indian and international languages such as Turkish, Persian, Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Serbian, English, Russian, Greek to Tamil. The State government had allocated Rs 3 crore for translation work.
This year, Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF), an annual international trade fair from Italy, and a popular event in the publishing industry, will be the guest of honour.
During the event, the minister presented awards to multiple best libraries in TN and 29 individuals for their work related to libraries and donations. He also awarded 17 reading circles that performed well as library enthusiasts in the districts, four libraries with the most members and 4 libraries with the most donations in TN.
In Tenkasi, Tirupattur, Ranipet and Kancheepuram, work is underway to set up a district central library at Rs 6 crore each. “Along with this, measures have been taken to obtain government orders in Kallakurichi and Mayiladuthurai,” he added.