Govt to host Young Leaders Dialogue at Bharat Mandapam on Jan 11-12: PM Modi

The government will host a Vikasit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue between January 11 and 12 at the Bharat Mandapam in Delhi in 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced during his monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat on Sunday, as he focussed on youth and Indian history in the episode 116th episode. This Dialogue is being organised to celebrate Youth Day, which is marked on Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary on January 12.
“Crores of youth from all over India will participate in it. Two thousand such youth selected from villages, blocks, districts, states will gather at Bharat Mandapam for the ‘Vikasit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue’. You might remember that from the ramparts of the Red Fort, I have urged such youths to join politics, none of whose family members or even the entire family have had a political background. To connect 1 lakh such youths, new youths, to politics, many special campaigns will be run in the country. ‘Vikasit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue’ is also one such effort. Experts from the country and abroad will grace this. Many national and international personalities would also be there. I will also be present in it for as much time as possible. The youth will get an opportunity to present their ideas directly before us,” he said.
Modi also said that more than two million young people are associated with the national cadet corps (NCC) today, up from about 1.4 million in 2014. Earlier, he said without specifying the year, the number of girls was around 25% and now it is “almost 40%”. He said that efforts were being made to get youth living in border areas to join the NVC.
Modi talked about how more than 8 million pensioners had got their Digital Life Certificates, of which 200,000 people are above the age of 80 years. “By enabling the Digital Life Certificate, things have become very simple; the elderly do not have to go to the bank,” he said. To be sure, to generate the DLC, the elderly must have a biometric-enabled Aadhaar and a registered mobile number. To actually generate it on their own, they must have a phone capable of reading their fingerprints, or they have to go to their nearest Citizen Service Centre to use their biometric device, where they may have to pay for using their services, according to the procedure given on the Jeevan Pramaan website.
Modi said that the youth have also been spreading awareness about digital arrest, an issue he talked about at length in last month’s episode.
Modi talked about two libraries, one standalone library in Chennai and a chain of libraries in Hyderabad, that have been set up by an individual and an NGO.
Modi talked about his recent visit to Guyana and Indians were originally taken there to work the fields but now, people of Indian origin, including its president Dr Irfan Ali, are leading in every field. He asked listeners to send stories of Indian immigrants who have made their mark in other countries on MyGov or on NaMo app. To be sure, while MyGov is a government enterprise, NaMo app is run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Modi said that with the support from the Indian Embassy in Oman and National Archives of India, a team of people has started preserving the history of Indian families in Oman, most of whom came from Kutch in Gujarat. “Thousands of documents have been collected under this campaign so far. These include diaries, account books, ledgers, letters and telegrams. Some of these documents even date back to the year 1838. … The ‘Oral History Project’ is also an important basis of this mission. In this mission, senior people from there have shared their experiences.,” he said.
He mentioned the similar Oral History Project being done to record oral testimonies from survivors of partition as well. This project is run by the Partition Museum of Amritsar.
Modi said that “a directory has been created to preserve the history of villages” and evidence related to India’s “ancient maritime capability”. For the latter, a museum is being built in Lothal.
He also said that the Upanishads had been, for the first time, translated into the Slovak language.
Modi said that under the “Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam” campaign, people had planted more than a billion trees across the country in five months. In the other hand, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, in February 2023, had permitted the Uttar Pradesh government to fell over 112,000 trees in protected forest area under the Kanwar Marg Project.
In Indore, more than 1.2 million trees were planted in 24 hours. “On account of this campaign, the barren area of Revati Hills of Indore will now turn into a green zone,” he said. In Jaisalmer, a team of women planted more than 25,000 trees in an hour.
He also talked about Chennai’s Kudugal Trust that has been working with school students to increase the sparrow population in the area.