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President Ram Nath Kovind will address the nation on Monday on the eve of the 72nd Republic Day, which will be broadcast at 7:00 PM on All India Radio and Doordarshan TV channels across India.
It will be telecast through all the channels of Doordarshan in Hindi followed by the English version, and later in regional languages by the respective regional channels. The All India Radio will broadcast regional language versions of the President’s address from 9:30 PM onwards.
As India celebrates its 72nd Republic Day, the annual parade at Delhi’s iconic Rajpath is set to be different in comparison to previous years amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. The number of attendees at Rajpath has also been reduced — 25,000 will be seated along the ceremonial boulevard instead of 1.15 lakh.
In his previous address on the eve of Republic Day, Kovind had invoked constitutional ideals and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. “Our Constitution gave us rights as citizens of a free democratic nation, but also placed on us the responsibility to always adhere to the central tenets of our democracy – justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. It becomes easier for us to follow these constitutional ideals if we keep in mind the life and values of the Father of our Nation,” he had said.
How did the President’s Address on Republic Day eve become a tradition?
On January 26, 1950, at 10.18 a.m., in the Durbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan (then called the Government house) governor-general C Rajagopalachari read out a proclamation announcing the birth of our republic. This was followed by the swearing-in of our first president, Rajendra Prasad, and our first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his cabinet. President Rajendra Prasad, in his first Republic Day speech, which was also his acceptance speech, announced, “Today, for the first time in our long and chequered history we find the whole of this vast land… brought together under the jurisdiction of one constitution and one union which takes over responsibility for the welfare of more than 320 million men and women who inhabit it”.
From then on, every year, our presidents have sought to remind us not only of how far we have come but also how far we are yet to travel in our collective pursuit of the ideals spelled out in 1950.
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