Gorakhpur student Aniket Mishra to celebrate Republic Day with PM Modi

Mishra, who is currently in the Capital for his exams, will be accompanied by his aunt and is expected to report to Hotel Ashoka in New Delhi on January 25.

Aniket Mishra, a second-year student of IIT Guwahati, has been invited as a guest during the Republic Day celebrations in Delhi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mishra, who is from Gorakhpur, will join the Prime Minister in his special VIP box at Rajpath next Tuesday to witness the Republic Day parade.

Camel mounted soldiers are silhouetted against the evening sky during the rehearsals for the upcoming beating retreat ceremony which marks the end of Republic Day celebrations at the Raisina hills, in New Delhi (AP PHOTO)

Mishra, who is currently in the Capital for his exams, will be accompanied by his aunt and is expected to report to Hotel Ashoka in New Delhi on January 25. He said that it is a matter of huge honour for him to attend the Republic Day celebrations with the Prime Minister. He said that his family will also watch the Republic Day celebrations in Delhi and are eagerly waiting for the January 26 to arrive.

Mishra’s parents and relatives have expressed their happiness after he received the invitation from the Union ministry of education, HT’s sister concern livehindustan.com reported. His father, Rakesh Mishra, said that his son is a talented student and had topped the college exams in his first year. Aniket is pursuing his BTech in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati and had scored 96.5% in 2017 in his Class 10 board exams and got 98% in his Class 12 board exams. The senior Mishra works as a loco pilot with the Indian Railways, and his mother, Saroj Mishra, is a power controller at North Eastern Railway's Gorakhpur headquarters.

Divyangi Tripathi, who also hails from Gorakhpur, will attend the ceremony with the Prime Minister along with Mishra. Divyangi, who had scored 99.6% in the CBSE exams last year, praised the government for its initiative. “I am very excited about this. It's a very good initiative launched by the government. Students from all sections of society are selected without any discrimination,” Tripathi was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

India will celebrate its 72nd Republic Day following social distancing measures as the nation is still reeling from the effects of the pandemic. There is no foreign head of state as a chief guest this year after United Kingdom's PM Boris Johnson cancelled his visit due to rise in Covid-19 cases in his country due to a new mutated variant.