Approximately 80,000 people, aged from the young to the old, were in attendance at the 20th World Book Fair in New Delhi on Sunday.

Held at the famous Pragati Maidan venue, India's largest book fair got underway on February 25th and is on until March 4th. This year, it is themed around Bollywood, the country's thriving film industry.

According to the Deccan Herald, this year's fair has been much more popular with younger readers thanks to focus on cinema, as well as audio books and ebooks.

M A Sikander, director of the National Book Trust, explained that the World Book Fair is appealing to what are the major literary attractions of today's young readers.

"We have organised several seminars and interactive sessions where some of the renowned authors will read at least a page from their books," he told the newspaper.

The festival was inaugurated by Kapil Sibal, union cabinet minister for human resource development, who announced plans to make the biennial fair into an annual event, due to its prominence as one of the leading literary events in the Afro-Asian region.

He added that India is now the third largest publisher of English language books after the UK and the US.

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