New Delhi World Book Fair is a major event which is observed in New Delhi every year during February, and is quite popular since it is amongst the most ancient book fair of the country. The oldest book fair in New Delhi was organised on 18th March, 1972 which continued till 4th April, 1972. It occupied an area measuring about 6790 square metres and was participated by as many as 200 participants. The National Book Trust or NBT organises the New Delhi World Book Fair. Various types of children events are held here, under the supervision of the National Centre for Children Literature or NCCL which is a department of NBT. The events meant for children are an essential portion of the fair mainly to encourage the children literature and also the national Readers Club Movement.
Indian is said to be the largest market which sell English publications as there exist more than 12, 000 publishers in the nation. They publish nearly about 90, 000 book titles every year, in above 18 vernacular languages of the nation. New Delhi World Book Fair 2006 boasts of 1.298 exhibitors and it was spread over an area of 38 square metres and more than 1 million visitors. Innumerable books were displayed in the different book stalls in the NDWBF, form the publishers and book sellers belonging to several countries like Germany, France, Italy, Malaysia, USA, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Mauritius, Canada, Singapore, and Sri Lanka.
Pragati Maidan was the region where the 20th New Delhi World Book Fair 2012 was conducted which started on 25th February 2012 till 4th March, 2012. The National Book Trust was entrusted with the responsibility of organising the grand book fair. The HRD Minister Kapil Sibal had inaugurated the fair, whose central theme was `Towards 100 years of Indian Cinema`. The New Delhi World Book Fair 2013 had been hosted from 4th February 2013 till 10th February 2013 at Pragati Maidan, organised by the NBT. This time, the theme of the book fair was `Indigenous Voices: Mapping India`s Folk & Tribal Literature` and was the product of joint efforts of Indian Trade Promotion Organization or ITPO and also the National Book Trust. The then HRD Minister of the State, Shashi Tharoor had inaugurated the 21st edition of the New Delhi World Book Fair. Different types of interesting competitions and book events added to the fun quotient of the book fair which involved school librarians meet, `Cos` plays and much more. School librarians meet, authors corner are the other aspects of the book fair. The National Debut Youth Fiction Writers meet 2013 organised in collaboration with the Consortium Octet. During the 2013 NDWBF, France was the guest nation and during the next New Delhi World Book Fair 2013, Poland would be the gust of honour nation.
