Friday, December 5, 2008

Amritsar to host National Youth Festival

Patna, December 5, 2008
The 14th National Youth Festival will be held at Amritsar, Punjab from January 12 to 16 next year. About 4000 youths from all States and Union Territories are expected to participate in the Youth Festival. National Youth Festival is organized every year from January 12 to mark the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. The day is observed as National Youth Day. It will be for the first time that the National Youth Festival would be held in Punjab.

A meeting of the National Steering Committee set up under the chairmanship of Dr. M. S. Gill, Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports, will be held in New Delhi on December 10 to finalise the arrangements and the theme of the ensuing Festival. Ambika Soni, Minister for Tourism and Culture and Sardar Parkash Singh Badal, Chief Minister, Punjab will be the co-chairpersons.

The Union Government has already released an amount of Rs 150 lakh to the Punjab Government for organizing the Youth Festival. The Department of Youth Affairs, Government of India has requested each State and Union Territories to send a contingent of 100 participants in the festival for competing in designated events and also for participating in other activities. Youth delegates from the SAARC and neighboring countries have also been invited to participate in the festival.

The festival will be inaugurated on January12 in which the National Youth awards, and awards to the Outstanding Youth Clubs will be given. The closing ceremony of the Youth Festival is scheduled on January 16..

There will be competitive events in 16 individual items and two group items. In addition to this a young Artists Camp, Yuva Kriti and an Adventure Festival will be organized by the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan. The National Service Scheme will organize a National Youth Convention and a lecture series 'Suvichar' during the festival.

The First National Youth Festival was successfully held at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh in the year 1995. The venues where these Festivals were subsequently successfully held are Kolkata (West Bengal) in 1996, Ahmedabad (Gujrat) in 1997 ,Chennai (Tamil Nadu) in 1998 ,Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) in 1999, Gandhinagar (Gujarat) in 2000 ,Hissar (Haryana) in 2002 ,Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) in 2003 ,Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) in 2004 ,Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) in 2005 ,Patna (Bihar) in 2006 , Pune (Maharashtra) in 2007 and Chennai (Tamil Nadu)in 2008.

Source: PIB press release



No comments:

Post a Comment