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Friday, Sep 15, 2006
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National

Ministry to create cell to monitor commemoration programmes

Anita Joshua

Cabinet approval awaited for appointment of official

NEW DELHI: Close on the heels of the controversy over the Vande Mataram issue, the Ministry of Tourism and Culture has decided to create a cell to monitor the various commemoration programmes.

The programmes are commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the First War of Independence, 1857; the 60th anniversary of Independence; the 75th anniversary of the martyrdom of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and his birth centenary.

With the Finance Ministry already clearing the proposal, the cell now awaits Cabinet approval as its creation involves the appointment of a Joint Secretary-level official. Besides a Joint Secretary, it will have a deputy secretary and some support staff, and the proposal that was forwarded to the Finance Ministry states that it would be disbanded after three years once it has served its specific purpose.

While setting up the cell, the Ministry has essentially borrowed a leaf from the previous government which had created a separate entity to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the Indian Republic. The only difference is that this time round a Joint Secretary will head the cell and not an Additional Secretary as was the case during the National Democratic Alliance regime.

Though officials sought to delink the setting up of the cell from the Vande Mataram controversy, it is being privately admitted that the row over the National Song would not have happened had the facts been verified in the first place.

The Ministry primarily accepted the word of freedom fighter and the former member of Parliament, Shashi Bhushan, when he claimed that 2006 was the `centenary' of the adoption of the Vande Mataram.

It is awaiting recommendations from the National Committee constituted on May 1 to chalk out programmes for the four events. Though this very National Committee is also supposed to suggest programmes for the `centenary' celebration of the adoption of the Vande Mataram, officials refused to divulge whether it was still on the agenda.

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