Sale of Bangla books published abroad continued at a good many stalls set up outside the Bangla Academy compound at Ekushey book fair on Monday, flouting fair rules.
The books in Bangla published by Kolkata-based publishers were found selling at the stalls of Bangabandhu Baimela Parishad and Spandan publishing houses.
The vigilance teams on Monday seized around 100 books from different stalls for selling books not published by their own publishing houses and the books published abroad. But the authorities are yet to take any action against these stalls.
‘We are aware of the fact. The decision on these stalls will come at the review committee meeting at 8:00pm today,’ the Bangla Academy director general, Syed Mohammad Shahed, said.
‘It will be difficult for us to stop these stalls from selling books of other publishers, if the publishers themselves do not have any concern,’ he added.
The book fair authorities have failed to complete allocation of all the stalls even on the ninth day of the fair. Besides, they are yet to provide the list of allocated stalls.
The authorities on Sunday said there were 460 stalls in the fair but on Monday they put the figure at 464.
Carpenters were seen decorating two stalls on Monday which remained empty till Sunday.
The fair guideline clearly states that allocation of stall would be cancelled if the allotees fail to open the stalls on first day of the fair.
The fair witnessed a good number of visitors on the day with arrival of 91 new titles. Film makers Amjad Hussain and Mostofa Sarwar Faruqi visited the fair. Some visitors looked for Bengali-Bengali dictionary of Bangla Academy, but it was not available at the academy’s sales centre. The academy director general told that it would take two or three days to make the dictionary available at the fair as binding work is still going on.
Security appeared to poor on the day as the visitors hardly faced any check by the law enforcers.
The academy held a seminar on good governance as a part of series of lectures on ‘Prospective Bangladesh.’ Shahdeen Malik read out the keynote paper at the seminar chaired by Mohammad Mohabbat Khan.
Badiul Alam Majumdar of Sujon, a local NGO, addressed at the seminar which was followed by a cultural function.
Dhaka University professor MM Akash will read out the keynote paper at today’s seminar on economics. Economist Anu Muhammad and Atiur Rahman will address the seminar to be chaired by Mohammad Abdul Majid.
