DU students protest against publishers at Delhi Book Fair

Delhi University students are up in arms against publishers, even as the High Court hearing to decide the fate of Rameshwari Photocopy Service, a shop at Delhi School of Economics, is scheduled for later this month.

Demanding withdrawal of the case, students of Delhi University were seen distributing pamphlets during the Delhi Book Fair at Pragati Maidan on Saturday and Sunday. They were seen talking to visitors about the case outside the Cambridge and Oxford University Press stalls.

A PhD student in Political Science, Naveen Chander, said: "We distributed pamphlets outside the Cambridge University Press stall. The stall owners asked the guards to evict us. We tried to reason it out with them and were joined by people who had come to visit the fair."

Vasundhara Jairat, a PhD student in Sociology, said: "During the commotion, one Cambridge University Press stall attendant spoke to us rudely. A group of students from Hindu College supported us. A doctor present at the stall told the officials that it was not possible for medical students to buy such expensive books."

According to the pamphlet distributed by the students, "the High Court case is an attack by profit-driven global players against students across the country. We believe their business model is fewer copies at higher prices".

"The royalties given to authors of these books are abysmal.

These companies defend their high prices by talking about authors and their royalties. However, when we spoke to the authors, most of them had no problems with the fact that photocopies of portions of their book are read by many students. Hence, the publishers' claim is bogus," Chander said.

Apart from the campaign on Facebook, a petition on change.org is also doing the rounds, urging publishers to withdraw the case filed against the shop.

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