YK MYK QATAR FOLLOWS SAUDIS AND UAE TO CLEAN ITS TEXTBOOKS OPINION Rs. 3 KOLKATA MONDAY, 10 JANUARY, 2022 PG- 8, YEAR— 8, ISSUE— 230 (RNI NO: WBENG / 2014 / 56803) LAKSHYA SEN EYEING MAIDEN TITLE ON INDIA OPEN DEBUT NATION Morning India PM Modi to inaugurate 25th National Youth Festival on January 12 on Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary Sankudev Panda leaves BJP’s WhatsApp groups MI NEWS SERVICE MI NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate and address the 25th National Youth Festival on January 12, on the occasion of Swami Vivekanand's 159th birth anniversary. Youth across the country can share suggestions and innovative ideas for the Prime Minister's speech on the occasion. The Prime Minister may include some of the suggestions in his speech, the official release by the Prime Minister's office said. The event will be attended by youth representing every district of India, National Youth Festival aims to galvanize, ignite, unite and activate the young citizenry towards nation-building, to unleash the true potential of our demographic dividend. The Festival also aims to ignite and fuel the minds of millennial and build a post COVID template of a YouthLed and most significantly, craft an Authentic Indian Leadership strategy, for the world. A National Youth Summit will be organized on 13th January 2022 that aims to bring diverse cultures of India and integrate them into a united thread of 'Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat', through an immersive and interactive approach. Idea exchange Youth Summit Sessions will be held with homegrown and global icons and experts to disseminate knowledge and shape intellect. KOLKATA: Sankudev Panda has become the latest entrant in the recent WhatsApp group revolt in BJP's state politics. With him leaving all the WhatsApp groups of the BJP Youth Front on Sunday, he made it to the list of names that left the BJP's WhatsApp group recently. Sankudev Panda is a very popular name. After a long stint in the Trinamool Congress, he joined the BJP. His move created a stir in political circles. However, no definite response has been received from him as to why he left these groups. After he left the groups, speculation has been rife as to whether he is leaving the BJP. In the equation of State politics in the recent past, a number of important leaders have left the BJP and returned to the TMC after the Assembly elections. Discussions have started since then about the position of Sankudev Panda. Sources said that Sankudev Panda has left the group due to some misunderstanding with those who are now in charge of the BJP in Bengal. However, it is not yet ‘Ensure adequate health infra at district level, maintain coordination with states’ NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday stressed on the need to ensure adequate health infrastructure at the district level and asked officials to maintain coordination regarding this with the states, in view of the prevailing COVID-19 situation. PM Modi today chaired a high-level meeting to assess the COVID-19 pandemic situation in the country, ongoing preparedness of health infrastructure and logistics, status of the vaccination campaign in the country and the emergence of new COVID-19 variant Omicron and its public health implications for the country. A detailed presentation highlighting the surge in cases currently being reported globally was given by the Secretary of Health Ministry. Artistes Forum elects Ranjit Mallick as President MI NEWS SERVICE KOLKATA: Veteran actor Ranjit Mallick has been elected as the new president of West Bengal Motion Pictures Artistes Forum. Another actor Jeet has been elected as the Executive President. Five artistes remained as vicepresidents: Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Sumanta Mukherjee, Kaushik Sen, Aparajita Auddy and Bharat Kaul. Santilal Mukherjee has got the post of general secre- tary. Ankush Hazra is a new addition along with Diganta Bagchi as joint editor. After spending more than a decade in Tollywood, he took his place in the organisation. The actor is happy to get new responsibilities. Ankush Hazra said, "I have worked with almost everyone who is in charge. I have been part of the movies; I have promoted them. That's all I had to do. This time the responsibility has increased. I hope those who are there will teach me everything." The 'FIR' actor wants to work with the overall development of the artistes in mind. He also wants to think about how to continue working without compromising their safety during the time of pandemic. Kushal Chakraborty and Subhasis Mitra have become the assistant secretaries of the new committee. Tapas Chakraborty and Sohan Bandyopadhyay are the Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer respectively. A seven-member executive council comprising of Parthasarathi Deb, Sudip Mukherjee, Abir Chattopadhyay, Payal Dey, Shubrajit Dutta, Anindya Chakraborty and Shankar Chakraborty has been formed. Joint Secretary Diganta Bagchi said they would look into meeting a number of targets. Currently the Artistes Forum department is inside the Technicians Studio. The organisation needs a place of its own. It wants to create a gymnasium, library, meeting room for members there. He also said that attention should be paid to ensure that no artiste of the industry remains unemployed. He said, "We want to focus on the earnings of the artistes. Out of three and a half thousand artistes, only six or seven hundred get regular jobs. We will plan to create a work environment or environment for everyone. I will also request the producers in this regard." Apart from this, we will also take care of the needs of artistes in this testing time of COVID, he added. known whether he is leaving the BJP or joining the TMC. A few days ago, Kharagpur MLA Hiran Chatterjee left the group. However, he vented his anger against the BJP leadership in Bengal without any hesitation. With the repeated WhatsApp mutiny the BJP leadership is certainly in a quandary. From Saumitra Khan to Sankudev Panda on Sunday, the BJP leadership has so far failed to quell the dissent of young leaders. BJP Youth Morcha President Indranil Khan said that the activists of the Youth Morcha were busy in thwarting the third wave of COVID-19. That's why there's not much time left to look at who's in the group or who is not. He said the incident may have been due to technical reasons. BJP leader Jay Prakash Majumdar said it was not yet known why Sankudev Panda had left the group. Also, Sankudev has not joined the programmes of the party in the last few days and has not been removed from any post. For that reason, the incident of him leaving the group should not be seen together with the others leaving the group.