VELLORE: Leaders are always readers and hence teachers should encourage students to develop the habit of reading, Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan said while inaugurating an 11-day book festival at Nethaji stadium in Vellore on Friday.

The Minister said great leaders like Nelson Mandela and former TN CM CN Annadurai were voracious readers, the latter asking doctors who were about to perform an operation on him to wait till he finished the last few pages of a book he was reading. The exhibition includes a stall by the Prison Department, which also solicits book donations for prisoners. Vellore philatelist and numismatist Tamilvannan donated the first book at this stall.