Today is National Reading Day. The day is celebrated annually on this day to honour the birth anniversary of Puthuvayil Narayana Panicker, the father of the Library Movement in Keralam. Started as a Reading Day observance on June 19, 1996, by the Government of Keralam in association with the P N Panicker Foundation, the initiative evolved into a mass movement promoting literacy and fostering a culture of reading across the state. In 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the National Reading Day and Reading Month celebrations during his visit to Kochi giving national recognition to the Reading Day observance.