The audience listening to the Hon’ble Minister’s address
29thOctober marked a very important day as Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Hon’bleUnion Minster, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and Ministry of Information& Broadcasting, Government of India came down to visit Amity UniversityKolkata campus with NSS functionaries from 25 Universities/Institutes/+ 2Higher Secondary Council ( Higher Secondary schools) and representatives fromHeadquarters NSS, New Delhi.
TheHon’ble Minster was greeted by the students of Amity and NSS volunteers withNSS Claps and flowers and was given a standing ovation by the audience in theauditorium. The programme started with the Watering of Plant by the Hon’bleMinister accompanied by the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, Prof. (Dr.) DhrubajyotiChattopadhyay, Shri Virendra Mishra, IPS-Director of NSS, Smt. SaritaPatel-Regional Director, Government of India, Dr. Rama Prasad Bhattacharya-Joint DPI and State NSS Officer, Department of Higher Education, Government ofWest Bengal followed by inaugural song and NSS song.
Thewelcome address was delivered by the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of AmityUniversity Kolkata wherein he introduced the Hon’ble Minister as the icon ofyouth and mentioned about his contributions in the field of sports as well asarmy along with nation building activities. All the dignitaries on the stagewere felicitated by NSS officers and volunteers. Hon’ble Vice Chancellor AmityUniversity Kolkata along with the HR Director felicitated Hon’ble Minster withUttario and Amity memento.
TheDirector of NSS in his speech mentioned the importance of NSS, the role of NSSvolunteers towards nation building. He motivated the youth to be more involvedin the NSS activities. He stressed on the need as to why youth force need tojoin NSS. He categorically mentioned that NSS is a platform to developleadership qualities, personal grooming and development of a sense of socialand civic responsibility. He also suggested that an Alumni network be createdfor NSS volunteers and an IT framework for capturing the information about NSSactivities across the country should be introduced. He expected this will beinstrumental in promoting the NSS in India in a short time. He thanked AmityUniversity Kolkata for organizing the meet at such a short notice.
TheState NSS Officer briefed about the present status of NSS activities in WestBengal. He inspired the NSS volunteers to be more active and take up morechallenging tasks. He mentioned 131200 volunteers of 1093 government funded NSS units and 219 selffinancing NSS units are currently functioning in Bengal.
Hon’bleMinster started the session with his own experience in army and in the sportsfield. The Hon’ble Minster himself being an Olympiad and international Awardwinners in around 25 international championships expressed the need of Sportsin a student’s life. He cited variousexamples from his life to make the students of and the youth feel the necessityof social work. He emphasized on Digital India programme which will help tomake the country free from corruption. He categorically mentioned the necessityon women empowerment. He stressed on the need for women education and expressedhis sadness on female feticide. Clean India has been his third point ofdiscussion wherein he emphasized on theneed for the youth force to became aware so that Clean Indian can become asuccess. His speech ended with the spirit of Run for Unity as Rasthriya Ekta Diwas on 31st October tocommemorate the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the iron man andthe person who had drawn the map of India. He mentioned that as all thestudents of Amity University feel proud to be Amitians similarly all NSSvolunteers should feel great for belonging to a big NSS family. After hisspeech he requested the audience to stand up and take a pledge to create BetterIndia and Cleaner India.
Theprogramme ended with a formal vote of thanks by the Regional Director which wasfollowed by a group photo of the Hon’ble Minster with all the NSS functionariesincluding students.