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Tag: amar jawan jyoti

  • Rahul to lay foundation stone of memorial housing ‘Chhattisgarh Amar Jawan Jyoti’ on Thursday

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will on Thursday lay the foundation stone of a memorial in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur for soldiers and security personnel who lost their lives in the line of duty and will house an eternal flame on the lines of the ‘Amar Jawan Jyoti’.

    The eternal flame will be lit on the premises of ‘Chaithi Vahini Chhattisgarh Armed forces’ at Mana in Raipur as a mark of tribute to soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for the country, state government officials said.

    During his day-long visit to Chhattisgarh, Gandhi will also launch two state government schemes — ‘Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Bhumiheen Krishi Mazdoor Nyay Yojana’ and ‘Rajiv Yuva Mitan Club’ at a programme at Science College, Raipur.

    The ‘Chhattisgarh Amar Jawan Jyoti’ will have a brown marble wall with names of soldiers inscribed on it, a memorial tower and also a VVIP platform, the state government officials said.

    The crescent-shaped wall will be about 25 feet high with a length of about 100 feet and a thickness of 3 feet.

    In front of the crescent-shaped wall, a memorial tower will be built using sandstone, brown-white marble and granite with a memento on top.

    A rifle and helmet in the form of insignia will be placed at the base in front of the memorial tower.

    “Chhattisgarh Amar Jawan Jyoti will be lit in front of this symbol which will remain ignited 24 hours through fuel supply through underground pipelines,” the officials said, adding that the two-storey building will be constructed just in front of the memorial tower.

    The ‘Amar Jawan Jyoti’ at India Gate in Delhi was recently merged with the National War Memorial (NWM), drawing criticism from some political leaders, including Gandhi and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.

    Baghel had said the removal of the Amar Jawan Jyoti pained him. Gandhi will also be laying the foundation stone of ‘Sewa Gram’. He will transfer the first instalment of the ‘Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Bhumiheen Krishi Mazdoor Nyay Yojana’ in the bank accounts of 3,55,000 landless agricultural labourers registered under the scheme.

    An amount of Rs 6,000 will be directly transferred to the beneficiaries’ accounts in three instalments in a year. The state government has made a provision of Rs 200 crore in the supplementary budget for this scheme, the officials said.

    Under the ‘Rajiv Yuva Mitan Club’ scheme, 13,269 Rajiv Yuva Mitan Clubs will be constituted in each of the gram panchayats and urban bodies of the state in a phased manner, they said. Youngsters will get an opportunity to establish their identity and develop their leadership skills under this scheme, they said.

  • Bid to change history: Gehlot on merger of Amar Jawan Jyoti with NWM’s eternal flame

    By PTI

    JAIPUR: Terming the merger of Amar Jawan Jyoti with eternal flame at the National War Memorial in New Delhi as an attempt to change history, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Saturday questioned what was the problem for the Modi government if two different flames continued burning in honour of the martyrs.

    He said a golden history is made by doing great deeds.

    Gehlot said the move of extinguishing the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate and merging the two is “beyond everyone’s comprehension”.

    “If two different flames kept burning in honour of the martyrs, then what was the problem for the Modi government? It is an insult to martyrdom to extinguish the Amar Jawan Jyoti, which has been paying homage to the martyrs for 50 years,” Gehlot tweeted.

    “Doing such misdeeds is an attempt to change history, but the Modi government should understand that such efforts do not change history, but a golden history has to be made by doing great deeds,” he said.

    The chief minister said the Amar Jawan Jyoti is the memory of the soldiers who divided Pakistan into two nations.

    Extinguishing it and giving it the name of “merger” is an attempt to dilute the purity of that light, he said.

    “It is highly condemnable to do such an act on completion of 50 years of Bangladesh war victory,” Gehlot added.

    The ruling BJP on Friday accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of trying to create an “unnecessary controversy” over the decision to extinguish Amar Jawan Jyoti and merge it with the immortal flame at the National War Memorial, and said he lacks knowledge of basic historical facts.

    Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri noted that India Gate is a monument to Indian soldiers who had sacrificed their lives in the first World War, and Amar Jawan Jyoti was lit there to commemorate the sacrifice of soldiers in the 1971 victory over Pakistan as there was no war memorial then.

  • Ex-servicemen express mixed reactions on merger of Amar Jawan Jyoti with NWM’s eternal flame

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Ex-servicemen expressed mixed reactions on the Centre’s decision to extinguish and merge the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate with the eternal flame at the National War Memorial (NWM) here on Friday.

    Former Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter and requested him to rescind the decision.

    “Sir, the eternal flame at India Gate is part of India’s psyche. You, I and our generation grew up saluting our brave jawans there,” he stated.

    While National War Memorial is great, the memories of Amar Jawan Jyoti are indelible, Bahadur noted.

    However, Former Lieutenant General Satish Dua expressed “great satisfaction” on merging the Amar Jawan Jyoti with the NWM’s eternal flame.

    “As someone who had steered the design selection and construction of the NWM, I had been of this view all along that India Gate is a memorial to the fallen heroes of First World War,” Dua stated.

    The Amar Jawan Jyoti was added in 1972 as we did not have another memorial, he mentioned.

    The NWM pays homage to the soldiers who were killed in action after the country’s independence and all homage ceremonies have been shifted to the new memorial already, he noted.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on February 25, 2019, inaugurated the NWM, where names of 25,942 soldiers have been inscribed in golden letters on granite tablets.

    Former Army Chief General Ved Malik also supported the Centre’s decision to merge the flames.

    He said on Twitter that it is “a natural thing” to merge flames now as the NWM has been established and all ceremonials related to remembrance and honouring soldiers killed in action are being held there.

    Former Colonel Rajendra Bhaduri said the Amar Jawan Jyoti is sacred and need not be extinguished.

    “India Gate has names of Indian soldiers who died in wars. It is immaterial who constructed it,” Bhaduri said on Twitter.

    The Amar Jawan Jyoti was constructed as a memorial for Indian soldiers who were killed in action in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, which India won, leading to the creation of Bangladesh.

    It was inaugurated by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, on January 26, 1972.

    Former Lieutenant General Kamal Jit Singh said on Friday that after the NWM’s inauguration, it is logical to unify both the flames.

    “Rationalise multiple memorials in penny packets,” he said on Twitter.

    Former Lieutenant Colonel Anil Duhoon said on Twitter that “If one can’t make it then break it” is the BJP’s mantra for new India.

    He said the Amar Jawan Jyoti is too sacred to be touched or relocated.

    “Why can’t they have two of them? Can’t understand their functioning,” Duhoon added.

    Government sources said it was an odd thing to see that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid homage to the martyrs of the 1971 and other wars but none of their names are present there.

    The names inscribed on the India Gate are of only some martyrs who fought for the British in the World War-1 and the Anglo Afghan War and thus is a symbol of our colonial past, the government sources said.

    They said the names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including 1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial.

    Hence it is a true homage to have the flame paying tribute to martyrs there, they added.