New Delhi : ‘Clean India Green India’ is the theme of the Indian government’s calendar for 2015 that was released here Wednesday by Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley, who also launched a mobile app to download its digital version.
Jaitley, who addressed the brief function at the National Media Centre, said this year’s calendar release function is “different” in the way that it has converged two of the government programmes in one – Swachch Bharat and Digital India.
The calendar that is devoted to the government’s Swachch Bharat or Clean India programme has on its first page a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi wielding the broom Oct. 2 when he kicked off the campaign.
Jaitley said the calendar highlights the societal work of the government through the visuals of Swachch Bharat. “Wherever the calendar will be seen it will send across a message of Swachch Bharat and thus contribute to the campaign,” he said.
The minister said the calendar also contributes to the Modi government’s Digital India programme with its mobile calendar app.
“The digital mode changes the concept of the calendar, you need not buy a calendar,” Jaitley said, adding that if technology continues to progress like this then “instead of a year calendar we will get it for a ‘yug’ (century)”.
“No one can defy technology. It is useful to society… We are at a mid-path. DAVP (Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity) promotes government programmes and also social objectives. I feel in the future, conventional and futuristic calendar will be taken forward by DAVP, said the minister.
DAVP director general K. Ganeshan said the theme of the 2015 calendar is based on the prime minister’s “clarion call of Swachch Bharat”. The event was also attended by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore and secretary in the ministry Bimal Julka.
The mobile app will display all gazetted and restricted holidays and also date-wise events. It will also provide information on Press Information Bureau events and releases, the latest five tweets by the Prime Minister’s Office, All India Radio news, Doordarshan news, a list of government websites and link to the ministry on YouTube.
Initially being developed for Android platforms, the Calender app would be available on other mobile platforms in a few days.