Here’s some good news for students, who want to pursue politics as a full-time career, and participate actively in running the government. Recently, MIT School of Government, Pune, announced its second Indian Student Parliament (Bhartiya Chhatra Sansad), which will be hosted in January, 2012, at the MIT Campus.
The first edition of this event in 2009 was a huge success, and now the organisers want to hold a second session of this assembly with more participants and bigger names.
The Indian Student Parliament is first of its kind initiative for channelising the energies of the youth towards strengthening the democratic fabric of our nation and tackling issues related to build India, informs Kapil Malhotra, adviser at the Indian Student Parliament. He says, “It is important to sensitise students about politics at an early age, for which we have designed the concept of Indian Student Parliament for college students. It is an exercise for identifying young leaders potential, introducing them to different issues, promoting them to be proactive on them while interacting with prominent personalities from different spheres of public life.”
“Usually students do not get a chance to learn about current political scenario or the detailed history of our national political parties because politics is not a part of regular syllabus. Here, we have invited different colleges across the nation to participate in this activity and be a part of our democracy. We will have nine sessions during the event and after each session students will pass a resolution. The participating students will then SMS and vote for this. The final results will be documented and taken to the current political leaders to make them aware about the demands and ideas of youth for our country,” he adds.
Students in the capital feel that this is a good initiative to create political awareness among youngsters.
Ankit Chopal, a second year animation student, says, “I think the concept of Indian Student Parliament is interesting because it is very similar to how our real Parliament functions. I would like to attend one of the sessions and know more about how I can contribute to develop my nation.”