Publishers' Exchange hosting discussion forum on Zubaan Translation Program today
Publishers’ Exchange is hosting a discussion forum on Zubaan Translation Program with Urvashi Butalia today, 16 August 2021, at 1800 hrs IST.
Urvashi Butalia co-founded Kali for Women in 1984 and in 2003, Zubaan. With over 35 years of experience in feminist and independent publishing, she has a formidable reputation in the industry in India and abroad. She also has a long involvement in the women’s movement in India and is a well-known writer, both in academia and in the literary world. She has several works to her credit, key among which is her path-breaking study of Partition, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India which won the Oral History Book Association Award, and the Nikkei Asia Award for Culture. Speaking Peace: Women’s Voices from Kashmir is another notable book that she has authored.
Butalia has also taught publishing for over 20 years and is on the advisory boards of a number of national and international organizations. She has received many awards, among which are the Pandora award for women’s publishing, the French Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres and the Padma Shree, the highest civilian honor awarded by the Indian government.
Butalia will be sharing details about the Zubaan Translation Program and opportunities to collaborate. The talk will be followed by a round of Q&A.
The session is open to publishers, translators, and editors working in the Indian languages publishing space.
The Publishers’ Exchange, is an informal organization of publishers in the Indian languages that was formed during the pandemic. It has been sharing knowledge and resources via zoom throughout 2020 and 2021.
Zubaan is an independent publishing house based in New Delhi with a strong academic and general list. It was set up in 2003 as an imprint of India’s first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women, and continues to publish books on, for, by, and about women in South Asia. Its academic list covers a range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences from research monographs to textbooks and supplementary material for students. Special areas of interest include conflict studies, health, human rights, and gender justice, history, cultural studies, and feminist and queer theory.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
