'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' to be theme of performances at HRD

Nearly 1400 school children from across the country will present a melange of Indian culture through dance, music, theatre and visual art performances as part of the four-day 'Kala Utsav' festival beginning here on December 8.
The theme of these performances will be 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' initiative launched by the Modi government, officials said.
They said the festival, an initiative of the Human Resource Develoment (HRD) Ministry will begin on December 8 at Bal Bhawan and conclude at a star studded ceremony at Siri Fort auditorium on December 11. The initiative was born out of the need for promoting aesthetics and arts in students, sources said.

"The festival seeks to promote art in education and aims at children learning about India's diverse art forms. So, all teams have also been encouraged to submit an online project, which will be one of the bases for evaluation to choose the winners. In addition, keeping in mind that the festival is essentially an event belonging to youngsters, the Kala Utsav will have a very wide presence on social media," an official said.
144 online projects - one for each of the four art forms from each of the 36 states and union territories- have already been submitted by the competing teams.

Around 144 teams from various government schools which had won the state-level competitions, will now converge in Delhi for this national-level event to be held every year, the official added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier inaugurated the Kala Utsav website on Teacher's day on September five.