Meetings, rallies in Odisha on Netaji's birth anniversary

Odisha Thursday celebrated the 117th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, prominent leader of India's freedom struggle and founder of the Indian National Army, with floral tributes, devotional songs, meetings and rallies.

Leaders of political parties visited Cuttack city, about 26 km from here, where Bose was born in 1897 and paid tributes to the freedom fighter by putting garlands on his statue.

Thousands of people, including school children, visited Janakinath Bhavan the ancestral house of Bose, now a museum, to look at the rare furniture and photographs of the family.

The other main attraction at the museum was a sand sculpture of Bose created by an artist.

The Odia translation of "An Indian Pilgrim," an unfinished autobiography by Bose, was released at a special function organised by the administration in his birthplace.

The translation, titled "Bharat Patheeka" was by Bijayini Singhdeo.

Prominent among those who visited the museum and paid tributes to Netaji were Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh and ministers and senior officials of the state government.

Statues of Bose were also garlanded in other cities of the state, including Bhubaneswar.

People from a cross-section of society, including social activists and school children, organised processions in different places. Special meetings, rallies and cultural programmes were organised in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.

Netaji spent his early childhood in Cuttack. He studied at the Ravenshaw Collegiate School and later went to Calcutta -- now Kolkata -- for higher studies.