The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : There was variety in the celebrations

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Saturday, Aug 16, 2008
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There was variety in the celebrations

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Each year, Independence Day sees a flurry of activity.

This year too, on the Independence Day, the city saw a variety of celebrations.

The planting of saplings was one of them. Officials from the Karnataka State Forest Department and volunteers from Civil Defence Wardens and The Art of Living planted 1,500 saplings on the Dodda Bommasandra lakebed on the occasion.

Green campaign

The planting was done under the Forest Department’s “Hasiru Seve” programme and flagships of “Green Code for Global Cooling” and “Mission Green Earth” of Civil Defence Wardens and The Art of Living respectively. The planting was done near Chamundeshwari Layout bus stop in Vidyaranyapuram — one of the areas developed on the lakebed.

At Bal Bhavan in Cubbon Park, Pandit Sudhakar Chaturvedi, 107-year-old freedom fighter, addressing a gathering said: “We must always be fearless while fighting for truth and justice.”

The function was jointly organised by BOSCO and the Department of Women and Child Welfare.

Earlier, hoisting the national flag, Shalini Rajneesh, Principal Secretary, Women and Child Welfare, said: “Unless children were free from child labour, poverty and abuse, there is no meaning in celebrating Independence Day.”

Edward Thomas, executive director, BOSCO, said that they had seven rehabilitation centres for underprivileged children.

At Lalbagh, one could hear patriotic songs at the Independence Day Celebrations. Organised by Amaravathi, a senior citizens group, in association with Lalbagh Walkers’ Association and the Indian Disabled League (IDL) Foundation, the event featured the two-year-old IDL blind band, which performed on Friday for the first time. The programme ended with the distribution of radio sets and sticks to the blind.

Clothes donation

Paatshala, a social forum for the youth, organised a clothes donation campaign on the eve of Independence Day, towards the cause of education of slum children at Kundanahalli. The campaign was held under the banner of its project Cloth Bank, which attempts to collect clothes for the marginalised, especially for those children who are deprived of mainstream education.

Peace walk

Students from Bangalore’s ICFAI Business School (IBS) took out a silent peace walk around Jayanagar 4th Block. Covering a distance of about 4 km and returning to the place from where they started, more than 1,000 students, faculty members and staff of IBS participated in it.

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