President Bidya Devi Bhandari has underlined the need of promoting reading culture and making it accessible to the masses.
“The availability of technology-friendly libraries to a larger extent including in public places is necessary to increase people’s access to books,” she said. While inaugurating a two-day Kitab Jatra (a book festival), a joint initiation of the Kitab Yatra Foundation and Kitab Yatra Pvt Ltd here today, the President said only books are not the source of learning, it is also possible from various dimensions of life.

According to her, disciplined, decent and responsible citizens are necessary for the change in the society and the elevation of the nation and the reading culture is the first condition for the same. “Prosperity is not just justified through economic development, it is also about the exploration and promotion of knowledge and civilisation.”

The Head-of-State also applauded the efforts of the Foundation to promote the Nepali language and literature, internationally.
On the occasion, the President took a time to praise litterateur Dhrubachandra Gautam and culture expert Satya Mohan Joshi for possessing multi-talents. This year’s Prem Sahitya Samman (a literary honor) was presented to noted novelist Gautam. Similarly, Girish Giri bagged the Kitab Jatra’s best seller award for his book ‘Satya Mohan’, a biography on the centenarian legendary figure and three-time Madan Prize winner Joshi.

The festival exhibits books by around 60 publications.
According to Foundation chair, Rhishiram Adhikari, the festival is in its annual calendar for the past five years and it aims to celebrate the power of words. The event is followed by discussion series on the reading culture, Nepali literature and so on.