As part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday celebrations on September 17, Ahmedabad district education department has ordered to celebrate success of abrogation Article 370.
According to the Wire, the Ahmedabad district education department has issued a circular to the principals of schools falling under Ahmedabad (Rural) areas, instructing them to organise special lectures, debates, essay and elocution competitions, group discussions and other similar exercises on the subject of the government’s decision regarding Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
The district education department's circular state's, “It [Articles 370 and 35A] touches [the] subject of social sciences in secondary and higher secondary education. Therefore, it is [a] subject of education and our prime minister’s birthday is on September 17. So, all the schools should conduct programmes like – elocution competition, debate competition, group discussion and essay competition along with other competitions in the morning assembly session. Experts can provide knowledge so that the students get to understand Article 370 and Article 35A.” The circular also states that the Modi government’s move to read down Article 370 has created “a global identity of the nation”, whatever that means. “This is to inform you that the Indian parliament has taken an excellent and people-oriented decision which has received unprecedented welcome,” it reads.
Speaking to The Wire, Rakesh R. Vyas, district education officer of Ahmedabad (Rural) said, “The decision to discuss Article 370 in schools was taken because it was an act that cannot be taken by a state government or municipal corporations, only the Central government could have done it. So it was decided that the prime minister’s birthday would be the perfect day on which to organise it [the discussions on the J&K move].”
“Since, there is something special about prime ministers’ birthdays, like the way former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday is celebrated as Children’s Day, we planned a similar thing relating to education for our current prime minister,” he added.
In order to avoid any untoward incident of violence, the Kashmir Valley continues to remain under heavy lockdown, barring relaxation of a few telephone lines.
Even though landline phones have been restored early this month, mobile services and the internet - on any platform - remain snapped. Harried journalists are now demanding that the government should at least restore broadband connections of media houses.
