Institute to spread Rajiv ideology soon

Sriperumbudar in Tamil Nadu, the place where former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's was assassinated, will now get a national institute of excellence for youth development, first of its kind in India.

Updated on: Jun 29, 2011, 24:06:07 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Sriperumbudar in Tamil Nadu, the place where former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's was assassinated, will now get a national institute of excellence for youth development, first of its kind in India.

The youth affairs ministry has drafted a new law for starting the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development at a cost of Rs100 crore to embolden Gandhi's ideas on cosmopolotianism, securalism, public service and technology.

“The institute is an affirmation of the special bond that existed between him (Gandhi) and the youth,” says a ministry's report, on basis of which the draft law was prepared.

The vision statement for the institute moves a step ahead and says the institute will endeavour to instill youth with the values of the late leader.

“It (the institute) will be emphatic in character building of the youth in accordance with his (Gandhi) vision,” the vision statement for the institute, which would be set up in 43 acres in Sriperumbudar, says.

The youth affairs ministry had been quick to act. Within a month of receiving the report, youth affairs minister Ajay Maken committed a national law. “The bill will be introduced in the monsoon session as it is required under the Constitution to have a law for setting up an institute of national excellence,” said Maken.

In this institute to embolden Gandhi’s value, Maken had given himself a role in running the institute. He would be institute's president as Youth Affairs minister with the President being the visitor.

The institute will not provide academic excellence to 600 students every year it will also advise the Centre on policies for the youth based on research and specific youth-oriented studies.

It will run masters and doctorate courses to train youth for social sectors such as health, education, poverty, tribal affairs, preservation of environment and transparency and accountability in public life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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