Speech by Reshmina Sherin KK
Day, every child in full-time education in the UK and Ireland is provided with a voucher to be spent on books, the event was first celebrated in the United Kingdom in 1998. The event is the local manifestation of the original, global World Book Day organized by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing, and copyright, and widely observed on 23 April. Organizers in the UK moved the observance to avoid clashes with Easter school holidays and with Saint George's Day. Book publishers in Ireland decided to bring World Book Day to Ireland a number of years later.
Conversely, the World Book Night event organized by independent charity The Reading Agency is held on 23 April.
Every year, as part of celebrations for World Book and Copyright Day, a World Book Capital is selected by UNESCO and international organizations representing the three major sectors of the book industry publishers, booksellers and libraries. Selected cities undertake to promote books and reading for all age groups and across all sectors of society, in the host country and beyond.
To date, UNESCO has designated 25 World Book Capitals, from Madrid, Spain, in 2001, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2025. This year, the Brazilian city is implementing a project that underlines how books can bring about social change - for example,