Indians observe the National Reading Day on June 19. The 26th National Reading Day will be celebrated on June 19, 2021, the following week as Reading Week, and Reading Month will be celebrated from June 19 to July 18.
The Reading Day celebration started merely in 1996. However, as the years passed, it turned into a massive movement with a number of participants to celebrate and honour the reading of habit. In the year 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked the 22nd National Reading Month Celebrations. He also spread the message to ‘Read and Grow’ for all the citizens of the country. The celebration is marked in the honour of the father of the Library Movement, the late P N Panicker. Puthuvayil Narayana Panicker is famously known as the Father of the Library Movement in the state of Kerala. He passed away on June 19, 1995. He initiated the trend of popular cultural movement in Kerala. This year is the 26th edition of National Reading Day, a day dedicated to Puthuvayil Narayana Panicker and his efforts to establish libraries in his home state. The P.N. Panicker Foundation has listed activities for schools and colleges on its website – pnpanickerfoundation.org. Some of the activities suggested by the foundation include webinars on the importance of reading, digital library and intellectual property rights, Covid-19 awareness, green Economy, etc.
