BOOK PROMOTION AND COPYRIGHT
Books are an essential tool of education. The steps taken by the
Ministry for book promotion are related to producing good literature at
moderate prices, encouraging indigenous authorship and popularising the
reading habit among masses. Some of the important programmes under-
taken in this regard are briefly described in the following paragraphs.
NATIONAL BOOK TRUST
The National Book Trust was set up in 1957 as an autonomous organisa-
tion with the objective of producing and encouraging production of good
reading material at moderate prices and fostering book-mindedness among
the people. In furtherance of these objectives, the Trust has been producing
good books in Indian languages and English and organising book fairs/
exhibitions as well as participating in book fairs (in India and abroad),
exhibitions, seminars, symposia, etc. The Trust also operates a scheme of
Subsidised Publication of higher education books in English and Hindi by
Indian authors with a view to making them available to the students at
low prices.
Publishing Programme Some of the important series under which the Trust publishes books
are : India-The Land and the People, National Biography, Young India
Library, Folklore of India, Popular Science and World of To-day. Since
its inception till 31st March, 1983, the Trust has brought out 1141 titles
(368 in English and 773 in Indian languages) under these series. During
1983-84, the Trust proposes to bring about 40 titles of which 25 titles have
been published by the end of November, 1983.
Besides the above series, the Trust has also two major publishing pro-
grammes for promotion of national integration, namely, Aadan Pradan and
Nehru Bal Pustakalaya series. Under the Aadan Pradan series, the Trust
has so far brought out 577 titles in various Indian languages and 8 more
titles have been brought out during the current financial year. Under the
Nehru Bal Pustakalaya series 846 titles have been brought out till 31st
March, 1983. In addition, 52 titles have been published during April-
November, 1983.
Rural Publishing An on-the-spot survey relating to the reading needs of the neo-literates,
which has now become an on-going programme of the Trust was under-
taken in Madhya Pradesh at Patna Tehsil, by the Trust in collaboration with
Rani Durgawati Vishwavidyalaya, Jabalpur from October 21-30, 1983.
A number of writers from the Bundelkhand regions participated.
Subsidized Scheme of University The Trust is implementing a scheme of university level standard books
Level Books since 1970 to make available books at reasonable prices. The total number
of books subsidized by the Trust since the inception of the Scheme (Till
March, 1983) is 509 and 81 more books were subsidized during April-
November 1983. The scope of the scheme has been extended to cover
university level books in Hindi and technical books at polytechnic level in
both English and Hindi.
Book Fairs The Trust is also organising book fairs and book festivals at national
and regional levels. The Trust has so far organised 11 National Book Fairs
in important metropolitan cities of India and over 98 regional book exhibi-
tions.
A National Children's Book Fair was organised by the Trust from
November 11-14, 1983 at Calcutta. On this occasion, a 3-day children's
writers camp covering three languaagse i.e. Assamese, Bengali, Oriya as well
as Cultural Programmes including screening of foreign children films were
also organised.
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NBT Silver Jubilee To mark the closing of the Silver Jubilee of the Trust a function was
held at the Auditorium of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen
Murti, New Delhi on the evening of July 30, 1983. An exhibition entitled
25 years of NBT, displaying the books brought out by the Trust since its
inception was organised from August 2-4, 1983 at AIFACS Hall, New
Delhi.
Publication of Low Priced Univer- This Ministry is operating three bilateral programmes in collaboration
sity Level Books and Publication of with the Governments of the UK, the USA and the USSR to make available
Foreign Books standard books of foreign origin to the Indian university students in low
priced editions. Latest editions of books are considered for coverage under
these programmes and are assessed by expert agencies from the stand point
of their suitability for Indian students. So far about 716 British, 1620
American and 435 Soviet books have been published under these pro-
grammes.
National Book Development A National Book Development Board was set up by the Government
Council in 1967 to lay down guidelines for the development of book industry in
the context of the overall requirements of the country. This Board was
reconstituted in 1970 and functioned until February, 1974.
The Government have now revised the Board to meet the crucial chal-
lenges in the book field. The new body, called the National Book Develop-
ment Council, has been reconstituted and its functions, inter-alia are :
(i) to lay down guidelines for the development of the book industry
in the context of the overall requirements of the country;
(ii) to foster reading habit among people;
(iii) to promote production of literature, specially relevant to children
and rural illiterates;
(iv) to encourage authorship particularly in Indian languages and sug-
gest measures for safeguarding the interests of the authors;
(v) to draft National Book Policy; and
(vi) to undertake and promote research, surveys, studies and special
projects to help in the achievements of objectives referred to
above.
The first meeting of the Council was held in New Delhi on January 9,
1984.
A 2-member Indian authors' delegation visited the USSR from May 3-18,
1983 under the Indo-Soviet Cultural Exchange Programme for the years
1982-83 and a 2-member Indian authors' delegation visited France from
September 27 to October 10, 1983 tinder this programme.
Import and Export of Books During 1983-84, the liberalised Import Policy was continued and import
of educational, scientific and technical books and journals, news magazines
and newspapers and records for learning of languages were allowed under
Open General Licence. This facility was subject to the grant of permission
by this Ministry in cases where more than 1000 copies of a single title
were proposed to be imported. Recognised institutions could import
teaching-aids, microfilms and microfiches of educational nature under Open
General Licence. The import of foreign editions of books for which editions
of Indian reprints are available was not allowed.
The concession for the release of post-parcels containing books, maga-
zines and periodicals without the, importers having to produce the import
licences continued to be available during 1983-84.
Dealers in books with a purchase turnover of books valuing Rs. 3 lakhs
or more, were eligible to apply for import licences on the basis of
10% of their purchase turnover, for the import of books
other than those covered by OGL. In addition, recognised schools, colleges
and libraries were allowed to apply for import licences up to a value of
Rs. 25,000/- per institution for the import of licenceable items.
Book Export Promotional India is one of the ten major book producing countries of the world
Activities and ranks third in production of English titles. To promote Indian books
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abroad and sale of translation/reprint rights and securing printing jobs
from abroad, steps are being taken to publicise our books through participa-
tion in international book fairs and organising special exhibitions of Indian
books, conducting market studies and commercial publicity through annotat-
ed catalogues, brochures, etc.
In 1983-84, India participated in the International Book Exhibitions/
Fairs held in Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan, Singapore, USSR,
Malaysia, Frankfurt, Belgrade, Mexico, Baharin and Egypt. Special exhibi-
tions of Indian books were also organised with the assistance of Indian
Missions abroad in Nigeria, Peoples Republics of China, Mauritius and
Indonesia. Book exhibitions are also proposed to be organised in Iran,
Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Burma.
As a result of participation in the International Book Fairs/Exhibitions
abroad, our export of books including the journals and periodicals for the
year 1983-84 is estimated to be about 20 crores of rupees.
RAJA RAMMOHUN ROY NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
CENTRE
The Centre serves as an information-cum-research Centre to encourage.
Indian authorship and indigenous book production at University Level. For
this purpose the Centre has under one roof, a large collection of University
level books produced in the country since 1965 in all languages, in various
disciplines. The Centre conducts an on-the-spot evaluation of the indigenous
books to assess their usefulness for university level students and exhibits
these books in exhibitions organised at Indian universities. During the
year 1983-84, the Centre organised five exhibitions at Chandigarh, Simla,
Bangalore. Hyderabad and Cochin respectively. The Centre has brought
out three quarterly supplements to the National Catalogue of university
level books. The Centre has been designated as the National Agency to
operate International Standard Book Number System in India. Data for
introducing this system is being collected from the publishers.
The Centre has also prepared a report of sample survey based on the
summaries of titles imported by 82 leading book importers during 1981-82.
It is proposed to prepare two more such reports during 1983-84.
COPYRIGHT
The Copyright Office was established in January, 1958 in pursuance of
Section 9 of the Copyright Act, 1958 (14 of 1957). During 1983 (up to
November 30, 1983) the Copyright Office registered 5307 works.
India is a member of two International Conventions on Copyright, name-
ly, the Berne Convention (1948) and the Universal Copyright Convention
(1952). These Conventions were revised at Paris in July, 1971 whereby
special concessions were given to the developing countries to enable them
to issue compulsory licences for reproduction/translation of books of foreign
origin.
The Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 1983 was adopted by both Houses
of Parliament during the monsoon session which concluded on August 26,
1983. The main objectives of the Amendment Bill are :
(i) to incorporate provisions in our Copyright Act in order to bring
it in line with the Paris Text 1971 of the International Copy-
right Conventions of which India is a member so that we can
take advantage of the facilities for reprint/translation rights
provided to the developing countries under this Text;
(ii) to provide adequate safeguards for the protection of authors'
rights; and
(iii) to remove certain lacunae and practical difficulties which have
been experienced in the working of the Copyright Act, 1957.
During the year 1983, India participated in the following international
Copyright meetings :
(i) 5th Session of the World Intellectual Property Organisation
(WIPO) Permanent Committee, and UNESCO/WIPO Seminar
on the Protection of Folklore-January-February, 1983.
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(ii) Meeting of the WIPO's World-wide Forum on the piracy of
Broadcasts and of the Printed word-March 16-18, 1983.
(iii) 2nd Session of Budget Committee, April 20-22, 1983.
(iv) Committee of Experts on Joint Inventive Activity, May 2-6,
1983.
(v) Access by Developing Countries to works Protected by Copy-
ed by WIPO held at Geneva, September-October, 1983.
(vi) Meetings of the Governing Bodies of WIPO/Unions Adminis-
tered by WIPO held at Geneva, September-October, 1983.
(vii) Meeting of the Governmental Experts on the Drafting of Model
Statutes for Institutions Administering Authors Rights in deve-
loping countries held in Geneva during October, 1983.
(viii) 4th Extra Ordinary Session of the International Governmental
Committee of International Copyright Convention, Paris during
November-December, 1983.
(ix) Sub-Committees of ILO, UNESCO/WlPO, Meetings regarding
Problems arising from transmission by Cable of television of
Programme held in Geneva, December 5-7, 1983.
(x) 9th Ordinary Session of the Inter-governmental Committee for
the Protection of Performance, Producers of Phonograms held
at Geneva from December 8-12, 1983.
(xi) International Copyright Convention held in Geneva from Dec-
ember 12-16, 1983.
Training Facilities to Foreign Under the Annual Copyright Training Programme, 1993 of WIPO,
Trainees India received two trainees, one from Indonesia and one from Philippines,
for receiving training in Copyright and related fields from November 1-10,
1983.
Training Facilities to Indian Under the WIPO/UNESCO Fellowships Programme for 1983, two
Trainees officers were deputed to participate in the following programmes :
(i) Specialised training in the field of neighbouring right and admi-
nistration of Copyright from May 5-20, 1983.
(ii) General introductory copyright training course under the
WIPO Fellowships for 1983 in West Germany, the UK and
Switzerland from October 10 to November 10, 1983.