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Republic Day parade to be more compact |
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The annual Republic Day parade, an occasion for India to showcase its military might and cultural diversity, is getting its first makeover since it was started in 1950.
Beginning this year, the parade, which in recent years had become a spectacle that dragged on for more than two hours and tested the patience of the audience, will be made more compact by cutting down on the number of marching contingents, cultural troupes and tableaux. Officials in the Defence Ministry said the aim was to bring down the duration of the parade — which begins at Rajpath, the magnificent central vista in the heart of the capital, and ends at the historic Mughal-built Red Fort — to a “compact one hour” in due course. The decision to curtail the parade was made following a series of meetings chaired by Defence Secretary Ajai Vikram Singh and had “nothing to do” with the Dec 26 Tsunami disaster, the officials said.
“The meetings reviewed feedback from various quarters, including the public and the media, which has spoken of audience fatigue,” said an official who did not want to be named.
“There was a suggestion that the parade be restricted to only one hour but it was felt this could not be done immediately. So it will be done in phases. This year, for example, the parade is being shortened by 30 minutes and will be completed in one hour and 45 minutes.”
The move, the officials said, was to package the event better for the television audience as well as those who gather along the parade route.
The number of marching contingents from the armed forces will be cut from 12 to eight and tableaux from various states will be brought down from 29 last year to 22.
The only time when the Republic Day parade was curtailed in recent years was in 2001, when the military’s presence was drastically reduced after the army was mobilised along the Pakistan border following a terror attack on India’s parliament.
India has traditionally used the parade to show off its latest military hardware, including home-grown missiles like the nuclear-capable Prithvi and Agni.
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