New Delhi (NVI): World Book Day is celebrated every year on April 23. This year, when the whole world is struggling to fight COVID-19 pandemic, everyone can utilise this lockdown period in reading books while staying put at home, UNESCO today said.
The day is marked to promote the enjoyment and importance of books and reading, celebrations take place all over the world to recognize the scope.
In 1995, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) first decided that World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on April 23, to pay a world-wide tribute to books and authors on this date, encouraging everyone to access books.
Since the entire world is going through a state of pandemic due to COVID-19 virus, most educational institutions have gone into a shutdown. Yet the power of e-books, digitalisation, reading positive things, and gaining knowledge is the need of the hour.
Today, UNESCO and the international organizations stand up for creativity, diversity and equal access to knowledge, with the work across the board and maintenance through its own initiatives.
“As books are our major source of information, entertainment and comfort during the coronavirus pandemic-led lockdown, the power of books should be leveraged to combat isolation. Parents should read good books along with their children, this period should be used to produce reading habits in children,” UNESCO added.
This day also marks the anniversaries of prominent literary figures like William Shakespeare’s whose birth and death anniversary falls on this day, along with Miguel de Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s death anniversary.
