A four-month long nation-wide campaign to focus on the youth "rediscovering" Mahatma Gandhi and learning from his life through a series of interaction with national leaders, artists and peace activists will be launched on Gandhi Jayanti at Kerela.
During the 121-day-long campaign, national leaders, peace activists, educators, artists and others will be engaged in a series of dialogues with youths from different educational institutions to inspire and encourage them to "rediscover" Gandhi.
The campaign is being jointly organised by Indian Council of Gandhian Studies, Himsamukth Bharath Foundation, Shobhit University and Harijan Sevak Sangh.
During the programme, youth assemblies, essay competitions, quiz competitions, poster and painting competitions, poetry compositions and recitals in educational institutions will be held in different parts of the country.
Five-day Gandhi Short Film Festival under the aegis of the Gandhi Media Foundation, Kerala Government and the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi will be held from October 3 to October 8 in Thiruvananthapuram.
School and college students will be encouraged to make short films on Gandhi.
The theme for school students will be 'Gandhi's Life and Philosophy in my Perspective' while for college students it will be 'Gandhi Today'.
"The aim is to make youth discover Gandhi through their own eyes. Somehow we feel that today's youth are alienated from the Gandhian philosophy. We want the youth to rediscover the philosophy," said Professor N Radhakrishnan, chairman of Indian Council for Gandhian Studies.
The campaign will be launched at Gandhi Samadhi at Rajghat on October 2.