Organised by the National Book Trust at the Shri Ram Centre auditorium, the venue was sparsely filled, with few youngsters in sight. The guests on the podium included Joshi, Education secretary M.K. Kaw, and Sanskrit scholars Vachaspati Upadhyay and Gautam Patel.

Joshi's speech started off on quite an entertaining note. He pointed to the motto on the wall The way to a golden future buy, beg or borrow a book. ``I don't agree with the `borrow' part as being a book lover, my books were often borrowed by friends by never returned,'' Murli Manohar Joshi said. He cited this as the reason that Mark Twain gave for his expansive library.

A major emphasis on all of the speeches was the importance of the Sanskrit language not surprising, since there were two experts present there. ``I don't know why English is called the universal language as the users of it comprise only nine per cent of the world population,''said Joshi. Sanskrit scholar Patel thanked the Union Minister for having declared 1999 as the year of the Sanskrit language. He termed the language as the ``mother of mother tongues.''

At the function Gautam Patel also presented a work of Adi Shankaracharya to the Union Minister. Besides this, he also released 12 Sanskrit works.

The highlights of the book week are organising exhibitions throughout the country, various programmes with well-known personalities -- in Delhi, there was a talk by Rajendra Yadav and Uma Sharma as well as awareness generated through the media.