Express News Service
LUCKNOW: Giving a push to the digital India campaign and to link the youth of Uttar Pradesh with it, the state government launched a massive drive to distribute tablets and smartphones free of cost to one crore students of undergraduate and post graduate courses here on Saturday.
While greeting the recipients for becoming part of the technology driven way of life and exhorting the youth to contribute to nation building and making Uttar Pradesh top the list of developed states, CM Yogi Adityanath said the real worth oftechnology was realized during the pandemic.
“The importance of technology was felt during the pandemic. Children did not have the facility for pursuing online education and attend classes in dearth of means. It was then that we decided to connect at least one crore youth of the statewith technology by distributing tablets and smartphones,” he said.
In all, 40,000 tablets and 60,000 smartphones were distributed among the youth on Saturday. On this occasion, CM Yogi honored Mirabai Chanu, the weight lifter who had won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics. She was given Rs 1.50 crore as honorarium and Rs 10 lakh was given to her coach. Chanu could not attend the felicitation ceremony organised by the UP government for all the Olympians in August this year.
While addressing a huge gathering of recipients at Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium, CM Yogi laced his speech with narratives suiting the atmosphere of the Assembly elections to be held early next year.
Claiming that the rate of unemployment had come down from 18 per cent in 2017 to 4 per cent in 2021 in the state, CM Yogi trained his guns at the opposition accusing it of “bhai-bhatijavad” (nepotism) in recruitment process during their regime. He claimed that whenever vacancies were announced for any department during the previous regime, the chachas (paternal uncles) and mamas (maternal uncles) used to be out on an extortion spree.
“Now all the job processes were transparent and the present government gave 4.5 lakh jobs to youths in 4.5 years of its tenure,” claimed CM Yogi.
Without taking names, the CM also accused the opposition of patronizing the mafia and creating an environment of fear in society stating that bulldozers were razing down the properties of mafia and criminals in UP. “Whenever the intent is honest, the results are always impressive,” said the CM stressing on his government’s slogan — ‘Soch Imaandar, Kaam Damdaar’.
CM Yogi took a dig at Akhilesh Yadav without naming him but made it conspicuous through the context. “They who get up at 12 noon, are now tired and retired … so don’t expect much from them. Don’t forget how they created confusion and crisis during the pandemic by spreading rumors against the vaccine and discarding it as BJP vaccine,” he maintained.
Commenting on the image of UP under the previous government, CM Yogi said that some of the districts were known to be so notorious that the youth from there were denied entry into hotels and rooms on rent elsewhere due to the tarnished image. Today the youth of Uttar Pradesh are making the state proud all over the world.
CM Yogi also invoked Lord Rama, Lord Krishna, Adi Shankaracharya, Lord Buddha, Shivaji Maharaj, Guru Govind Singhji, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Thakur Roshan Singh and Ashfaqullah Khan, Ramprasad Bismil, Veer Savarkar among others, who brought laurels to the country through their thoughts and acts at a very young age. Earlier, the CM paid a heartfelt tribute to Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, who laid the foundation of education in India. He virtually launched ‘Digi Shakti Portal’ and ‘Digi Shakti Adhyayan App’ which is installed in the devices given to youth.
Remembering the legendary leader, CM Yogi said that Atalji is an inspiration for all of us as he always promoted the youth to join politics which was based onideals.
The CM also announced that along with tablets and smartphones, the government is planning to provide free internet access and content for the students.
