RONO HILLS, Oct 3: A weeklong film festival on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, coinciding with the birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation, concluded here on Friday.
The festival was organized in the ‘blended mode’, in which the opening and closing functions were done offline.
The closing function witnessed the screening of films in the open air theatre near the ‘Wall of Heroes’ of Rajiv Gandhi University (RGU).
RGU Vice Chancellor Prof Saket Kushwaha said that “the Gandhian philosophy is not only practiced in our daily lives but also incorporated in policymaking of the country.
“The LTC or the leave travelling concession given to government employees has the vision of Mahatma, in which fellow countrymen take the opportunity to travel to all corners of the nation and learn how we all live together in peace and harmony. It also gave one to understand how developmental activities are carried out and how to learn from it,” he said.
Pro-VC Prof Amitava Mitra shared a personal anecdote of how as a young student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, he had the opportunity to become a part of the film on Gandhi.
Registrar Dr NT Rikam spoke on how the life of Mahatma has become “a way of our life, our philosophy.”
“Relatively, the older generations have some fair idea of the teachings of the Mahatma, and it is a challenge to educate the younger generations in these crucial aspects,” he said.
Dr Ira Helfand held a special virtual talk, organized by the Gandhi King Foundation, and stressed that “peace is important and Gandhi’s message indeed means much in our times to bring together youth and the world peace educational initiative.”
The university’s physical education department, led by Dr Vivek Kumar Singh, organized a ‘Fit India Movement’ certificate award ceremony with Dr Vaishali, Dr Rikam, Prof Mitra and Prof Kushwaha distributing the certificates and medals to the winners in various categories of the competition conducted on 29 August on National Sports Day.
On the occasion, Dr Vaishali released the bilingual monthly newsletter publication of the university, RonoPost, online on the university’s website.
The newsletter is a special issue dedicated to the Mahatma and Lal Bahadur Shastri.