New Delhi, Jun 13 

Crediting Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, with evoking a sense of popular participation, feeling of oneness and unity for the nation, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan today said the Salt Satyagraha was a classic example of people’s participation in the quest for freedom. Speaking at an event where Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu presented 100 Volumes of Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi to her for the Parliament Library, Ms Mahajan said, 'Gandhiji’s simple message to the common people during the national movement evoked a sense of popular participation, feeling of oneness and unity for the nation. The Salt Satyagraha was a classic example of people’s participation in the quest for freedom. His philosophy also influenced the global community with regard to service to the nation.' The Lok Sabha Speaker said that the collections would be kept in Parliament for members so as to enable them to peruse the heritage collection. She appreciated the efforts of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and complimented the I&B Minister for his efforts in taking forward this initiative and development agenda of the Government.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Naidu said that the writings of Mahatma Gandhi played an instrumental role in weaving the freedom movement together with the morals of truth and non-violence. Citing a quote by Mahatma Gandhi that “Let our lives be open books for all to study,” he said that collected works of Mahatma Gandhi gave an invaluable opportunity to study from the life teachings of Father of our Nation.

NIN NEWS SERVICE

UDHAMPUR, JULY 21: The Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar has stressed on the need for the administrative machinery at the Centre, State and District levels to pay due attention towards solving the problems of veterans and families of serving soldiers in a time bound manner. Inaugurating the 30th Meeting of Kendriya Sainik Board at New Delhi, Shri Parrikar said special attention by the Centre and State Governments and support by local administration towards welfare of

New Delhi, June 13

The European Delegation to India today released final tranche of 25 million euros of its 80 million euro grant for universal primary education and secondary education programmes of the government. This brings to a conclusion the EU's sector support to school education in India, to which it has contributed over 520 mn euroes. (currently valued at Rs. 3700 cr.) in grant funding. EU grants have contributed to setting up new schools, improving existing ones, bridging gender and social gaps, providing toilets especially for girls, training teachers, and enrolling nearly all children in the primary school years. India has more than 1.5 million schools in the public and private sectors, with over 227 million children enrolled. Around 1.29 million or 84.7% are in the rural areas. The reduction of dropout rates and the improvement of education outcomes as measured by various surveys are the main challenge for school policy makers and public authorities, going forward. At an event held in Delhi to mark the occasion, Ambassador of the European Union to India Tomasz Kozlowski recalled that the EU was the Indian Government's first development partner in education through its participation in the 155 districts initially selected under District Primary Education Programme in 1994.

Mumbai: Unidentified parachute-like objects were spotted in the Mumbai airport airspace here, raising security concern.

According to airport police, five unidentified objects were spotted over the airport area on Saturday evening by a pilot of Jet Airways when he was about to take a flight off the runway.