KARACHI      -         As many as around 0.4 million people have attended the 15th Book Fair till the second last day of the Karachi Book Fair.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (Pakistan) leader, Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan, Pak Sir Zameen’s party ex-member and minister for information and technology, Raza Haroon, renowned poet, Amjad Islam Amjad, Country’s famous Karate Grand Master, Ashraf Tai and many other notables of Karachi visited the fair on Sunday.  Karachi International Book Fair’s convenor, Waqar Mateen, members of the committee, Nadeem Akhtar and Asghar Zaidi welcomed the guests on their arrival and facilitated them to visit different bookstalls.

Talking to the media, MQM (P) leader Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan urged the federal and provincial governments to supervise the event of such nature.   Furthermore, Khawaja Izhar demanded the provincial minister of education to arrange free transport for students as 80 percent of the students belongs to middle-class section of society. Replying to a question, the MQM(P) lawmaker, Khawaja Izhar demanded the government to provide subsidies on books that are costly so that students can make avail of it.

PSP leader and minister for information & technology maintained that book reading habit in the students is coming to a point of non-existence as many youngsters are oblivious of the culture. “Nowadays there is no decency while having interaction as people have drifted away from their culture,” lamented Raza Haroon. “The authentication of knowledge is still a book and in this advanced world, book importance has not mitigated. Book makes a man a human being,” added Raza Haroon. Khawaja Izhar asked students to build a strong relationship with books available.   Moreover, Grand Master, Ashraf Tai welcomed the conduct of the book fair and called it a pleasing step taken by book fair management.  “Without book-reading man is considered to be incomplete as book breathes new thinking in human’s mind,” said Grand Master Ashraf Tai.

Waqar Mateen and Nadeem Akhtar who are the members of the managing committee said that they are taking feedback from the participants of the book fair about how to conduct future events in accordance to people’s wishes.

Meanwhile, a graceful book fair was arranged on the sidelines of 12th International Urdu Conference here at Arts Council of Pakistan.  Around two dozen book stalls from different publishers and sellers including Pakistan Book Foundation were set up, which attracted a large number of book lovers including children and women. 

The books in different languages were displayed subject and topic-wise. Urdu and English books dominated the show.

The stall-holders were generally satisfied over the public response.