Minister of State for Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said books are a "treasure" forever and a well written book survives longer than its author and also immortalizes its author for the generations to come.
Jitendra Singh delivered the inaugural speech at the first India Public Libraries Conference (IPLC) 2015.
"The unique viability of well written literature reflects in the fact that when kings, monarchs and rulers get either forgotten or get reduced to the footnotes of history books, a well written word survives and so also, through it survives its creator," Singh said at the event.
"In the past also there have been several phases when alternative means of narration seemed to take over the "written word" but eventually it was the printed word in the pages of books, journals and documents which outlived everything else," he added.
Singh asserted that the connoisseurs of book reading should not give up their sustained effort to nurture the habit by promoting book libraries and by encouraging others to spend value time in the sublime environs of these libraries.
Dr. Singh expressed the hope that in strife-torn times like this, a renewed endeavour to promote public libraries will ultimately take over as an important instrument for "social inclusion" and untainted harmony for a society as diverse as ours.
