15,000 delegates to attend Vivekananda's birth anniv programme

The four-year-long 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Swami Vivekananda organised by the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission will culminate this month with a series of programmes from January 19 to 30.
Altogether 15,000 delegates from India and abroad are expected to attend the celebrations in which West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Governor M K Narayanan and Union Culture Minister Chandresh Kumari Katoch and others would also be present, Swami Suhitananda, general secretary of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, said.
The celebrations are being organised by the monastic order which was set up by the 19th century philosopher-saint Swami Vivekananda, at Belurmath, few km away from Kolkata.

A disciple of the saint Ramakrishna, Vivekananda was born on January 12, 1863 and is credited to have brought Hinduism to the fore at the global level during his time.
As part of his birth anniversary celebrations, two conventions, a convention of devotees and a youth convention, will be organised on January 25-26 and January 29-30 during which public entry to the Belurmath premises would be restricted.
On January 13, a gala event would be organised in the Ganges river inside a fleet of 32 launch boats from Budge Budge to Panihati via Belurmath and Dakhineshwar, the monks said.