Governor to launch five books under scheme for writers

Panaji: Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai on Friday announced the release of five books published under the Raj Bhavan’s scheme for new writers titled ‘Nayi Pahal’.
The five titles are the first of many books that the Raj Bhavan plans on publishing through its innovative scheme.
Under this scheme, the government will sponsor the cost of printing and publishing fiction, non-fiction, poems, autobiography, or an anthology of short stories. The Raj Bhavan, however, will not be involved in the sale process of the books.
“A new writer’s book is a risky affair and normally publishers are hesitant to publish, even though the writer is talented,” said Pillai.
Authored by Sanjay Ramesh Salelkar (Konkani), Pallavi Polekar (Marathi), Manohar Adpaikar (Marathi) and Pachu Menon (two books in English), this will be the first round of books. In the coming year, Pillai said that several other books in varying languages will be published.
“Efforts will be made to publish books in 22 languages of India. It has been planned to print and publish 100 books in the next one year. There is no such endeavour in India, so far,” Pillai said.
For future publications, an undertaking from writers will be taken to ensure that there is no plagiarism, obscenity, and anti-national content in the books prior to publication. A panel of experts comprising members of the Sahitya Akademi, Konkani Bhasha Mandal, and Goa University will scrutinise the contents.
“Hereafter, we will effectively scrutinise the works through proper processes, and neither I as a governor nor my colleagues will interfere with that,” he said.
The governor further said that so far, there have been no applications to publish any texts in Sanskrit.