Students, residents pay respect to soldiers on Independence Day in Pune

A wreath-laying ceremony was held at the National War Memorial, Southern Command, Ghorpadi to pay homage to soldiers who lost their lives serving the nation.

Schools, colleges, universities, central and state departments, defence forces and residents celebrated India’s 73rd Independence Day on Thursday.

Deputy consul general of Ireland Elison Reilly hoisted Flag at Abhinav college, Katraj, Ambegaon on Independence Day. (Ravindra Joshi/HT PHOTO)

A wreath-laying ceremony was held at the National War Memorial, Southern Command, Ghorpadi to pay homage to soldiers who lost their lives serving the nation. Major General Navneet Kumar, General Officer Commanding (GOC), Dakshin Maharashtra and Goa Sub-Area (DMGSA) Pune, laid a commemorative wreath on behalf of all service personnel of the station. The war memorial was open throughout the day for residents to pay respect to soldiers. The station commander flagged off a motorcycle rally organised by Pune-based NGO, Dhruv Defence Motivation Centre from the war memorial.

Raksha Bandhan was also celebrated on August 15. Many volunteers and schoolchildren visited army units in the city and tied rakhis to soldiers to express their gratitude for their selfless service towards the nation.

These children were a part of a group of 100 Djembe students who performed on the occasion of Independence Day to pay tribute to the tabla maestro Ustad Alla Rakha to mark his birth centenary year. Organised by Nitin Satav’s Trk Dhoom music academy in association with Rhydhun, the Gurupurnima event was graced with performances by Djembe maestro Toufiq Qureshi, Shikhar Naad Qureshi and Tanmay Deochake (harmonium). (Rahul Raut/HT PHOTO)

Several housing societies in Kothrud, Baner, Mohammadwadi, Kondhwa, NIBM road, Sinhgad road, Bund Garden and other places carried out flag-hoisting ceremony to commemorate the event. Various events like athletics, yoga, alternative and commercial music and art shows were conducted by housing societies.

C Vidyasagar Rao, Maharashtra governor, unfurled the tri-colour at the Pune divisional commissioner headquarters in the presence of Girish Bapat, member of Parliament; Saurabh Rao, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) commissioner; Shravan Hardikar, PCMC commissioner; K Venkatesham, Pune police commissioner; RK Padmanabhan, Pimpri-Chinchwad police commissioner and Chandrakant Patil, Pune guardian minister.

Rao cancelled the evening Independence Day reception at Raj Bhavan against the backdrop of floods in the state.