Prakash Javadekar Reiterates Govt's Resolve on Freedom of Expression

Speaking at the first Brahmaputra Literary Festival in Assam, Prakash Javadekar, Union Human Resource Development Minister said that BJP-led governments, both at the centre and state are committed to upholding freedom of thought and expression. As these constitute the very essence of democracy of the country. National Book Trust and the Assam government had jointly organised three days festival.

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The minister underlined the importance of a campaign to encourage reading habit among all sections of people. These reading habits must be from different modes like -

• Printing
• Audio
• E-books

Javadekar also described how important libraries are for a nation. He called the libraries as the pride of a nation and appealed for making libraries a part of everyone's lives and set-up the libraries in every part of the country. History has the witnesses of how foreign invaders first attacked and then vandalised the libraries of these Universities. Since ancient times, India has a rich tradition of libraries in its different famous universities like -

• Takshila
• Nalanda
• Vikramshila

The minister recalled how the dark days of emergency had curtailed the freedom of speech of the people. BJP Government always values freedom of speech, writing and thoughts and these will lead the nation towards development. Many people in the country have fought against the dark days of emergency during the congress rule and had to go jail and further compelled the government to revoke it.

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He termed cultural and literary festivals as major investments for the society and said that they are as important as industrial investments. Like the investment summits in different states, literary and cultural summits and festivals should be held in different states.