Top leaders urge citizens to take inspiration from martyrs

In the backdrop of events enacting the historic events leading to the 1857 uprising, leaders ask citizens to help build a strong and unified India like the martyrs, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 11, 2007, 13:58:42 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In the backdrop of events enacting the historic events leading to the uprising in 1857 against the British rule at Red Fort, country's top leaders on Friday asked the citizens to take inspiration from the martyrs for building a strong and unified India that can achieve the goal of all around development.

President APJ Abdul Kalam set 2020 as a target for India achieving the status of a 'developed country' where rural India has similar facilities like urban India and poverty is eradicated. "When the prime minister delivers the Independence Day speech in 2020 from Red Fort, India should be a developed nation and not a developing nation," Kalam said, while identifying five key areas for development. They were agriculture, education, information and communication, basic facilities like transport for rural areas at par with urban areas and backwards' regions becoming self sufficient with industrial growth.

He also asked youth to take a pledge for a second "freedom struggle" against inequalities in the country to achieve the targets specified by him. The seven-point oath delivered included a promise to live a transparent and corruption free life and become an example for others.

Delivering his speech in Hindi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, India was moving from an age of social and economic changes along with the entire world and urged the people to join hands to take India ahead of the rest of the globe. "It would be true homage to the martyrs of the Independence struggle," he said.

The PM also recalled that 150 years ago the doors of Red Fort were opened to allow revolutionary soldiers and thus, the First War of Independence started, which ignited the rest of India for 90 years before India got Independence.

The celebrations held under tight security was also attended by Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and union ministers including Arjun Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar.

The Red Fort complex was teeming with over 30,000 youth who marched 60 kms from Meerut to Delhi on foot to participate in the mega cultural event involving over 2,000 artistes. The "Jang-e-Azadi 1857" march, which was flagged off from Meerut on May 7, reached the capital on Thursday. The colourfully dressed youth hailed from various states. The event opened with a cultural event showcasing India's First War of Independence.

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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