Bengaluru, January 25 (Karnataka Information): Constitution Awareness Jatha (Whole state, from 26th Jan to 23rd Feb), Constitution Workshop and Expo(Feb 24th and 25th Morning), Constitution Awareness Mega Convention (25th Evening).
The Constitution of India is the basis for everything in our country. Indian constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949 by the Constituent Assembly of India after painstaking effort of father of the Indian Constitution and the chairman of the drafting Committee, Dr. B.R.Ambedkar.
The draft Indian Constitution was well crafted after a thorough debate in the constituent assembly to reflect the diversity of Indian culture, ethos, and social fabric.
The essence of the Indian Constitution is treasured its preamble. It states that India is essentially constituted on the pillars of great values viz., Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, democratic republic and it calls for ensuring social, economic, and political justice to its citizen, people enjoy liberty of thoughts, expression, belief, faith, and worship of their own deity.
It is the duty of the Governments (Central and State, Province) in Power to ensure justice, liberty, dignity, unity, integrity, and equality and promote fraternity among the citizens. As we enter the 75th year of adoption of the Constitution, it is a good milestone to look at how the Constitution has performed and what are the challenges that lie ahead.
Also, the structure of Indian constitution is being debated and its embedded values appear to be under threat due to misconceptions or vested interests. Therefore, saving and preserving the Indian Constitution which was laboriously constructed is the biggest challenge of the present times.
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Therefore, Government of Karnataka has taken a decision to create mass awareness to reaffirming the Power of Indian constitution through this “constitution and Unity of India” programme.
This programme has three components:
Constitution Awareness Jatha(Whole state, from 26th Jan to 23rd Feb), Constitution Workshop and Expo(Feb 24th and 25th Morning), Mega Constitution Awareness Mega Convention (25th Evening).
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The Constitution Awareness Jatha (mass awareness), is being done at all the 31 districts. The jatha will have a LED mobile van that will play the multi-media on the essence of Constitution, how it has been prepared and adopted.
The LED van will be followed by 4-5 more tableaus which depict contents related to the constitution and other connected things specific to the districts. There will be wide participation from the govt, private and civil society. There could be cycle rallies. The Districts administrations have been given the freedom to design and conduct it.
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The jatha will travel through the district and reach every Gram panchayat in the districts, thus involving the elected members at the grass roots. It would take 27 days to cover the district. In bigger districts more than one tableaus are planned by the district administration.
The Hon’ble MLA/MLC and MPs have been requested to participate in the Jatha in their respective jurisdictions. During the Jatha, the officials will also verify those citizens who are not covered in the Guarantee programmes and who could be otherwise eligible.
The Jatha will have local halts, where cultural troupes will perform and there will be participation from the college students, workers, farmers, SHGs etc. There will also be on the spot competitions on the Constitutions.
The jatha will be flagged off by the District Incharge Ministers on 26th January. It would be just after the hoisting of the National Flag. The details of the jatha and the route maps will be available in the website created especially for this purpose.
The second part of the programme is a Workshop and Expo, intellectual discourse and discussion by experts on many facets of the constitution. It will be done at Palace grounds location on 24th and 25th February. Concurrently there will an expo on Constitutional values and science and Technology by KREIS (Karnataka Residential Educational Institutions Society) and other organisations.
This intellectual discourse will be on topics like the concept of Equality, liberty, Secularism, Social justice etc. The participants would be from the state, the country and few from outside India too. At the end of the round table, a declaration will be drafted based on the discussions.
This is jointly organised and curated by the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), and Karnataka Law University. These institutions would be collaborating with other institutions and NGOs in organising the round table. The details will be published in the website.
The third part is a Mega convention on Constitution awareness at the Palace grounds (Krishna Vihar) where public from all walks of life will gather. The expected gathering would be around a lakh and from all over the state they are expected to participate. This will be the valediction programme of the entire event and will be attended by many intellectuals, public representatives from across the country. The Mega convention is on 25th February, at palace grounds.
The three programmes are organised under the Social welfare dept that is closely connected with Dr Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, and also the dept that is tasked with the implementation of the Social justice in the state.
The Social welfare dept is organising in collaboration with other depts. like Tribal welfare dept, Backward class welfare dept, RDPR, Urban Development Dept, Kannada and Culture dept, Dept of Information and Public Relations, Revenue dept, state PSUs, NGOs etc.
For systematically organising the programme, 25 teams have been constituted headed by the ACS & Development Commissioner, and involving senior secretaries and HODs. The details of the teams will be in the website.
The expenditure for this programme will be met form the departments of RDPR, Social welfare, Tribal Welfare, Urban Development, Kannada and Culture, Department of information and Public Relation and local bodies etc.Already Rs 18 crores has been approved for the purpose of this programme and each district has been released Rs 25 lakhs already.
This programme is being launched as a follow up of the ‘Preamble reading programme’ that was conducted in September, 2023, for creating further awareness at field level among the people about the objectives and values of the constitution. We seek the cooperation and involvement of the entire media by giving wide publicity about the programme.
Regarding the programme more details are available at website: https://constitutionofindia-
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