In view of the raging third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic due to the Omicron variant, the central government has reportedly cancelled the plans to have any chief guest from Central Asian countries for the Republic Day Parade 2022.
“There will be no foreign chief guest from Central Asian countries on Republic Day this year due to Covid-19. The government had sent invitations to the Heads of State of five Central Asian countries but the plans have now been cancelled,” news agency ANI quoted sources as saying.
India saw a single-day spike of 2,58,089 new coronavirus infections, while the fatality count rose to 4,86,761 with 310 more deaths in the last 24 hours.
“This year the list of invitees include construction workers, sanitation workers, front line workers and auto-rickshaw drivers. The purpose is to give opportunity to every person in the society. The invitees have to be fully vaccinated,” sources in the Union Ministry of Defence said.
Total 600 young artists, who will perform at Rajpath this year, were selected through nationwide competition ‘Vande Bharatam’ organised by the Defence Ministry and the Ministry of Culture to ensure participation of people from all over the country and encourage talented dancers.
“This year the invitation cards for Republic Day have medicinal seeds. After the event, it can be sowed in a flower pot or garden. To encourage a start-up of IIT-Delhi, for the first time 1,000 drones will perform during the Beating the Retreat event. After China, Russia and the United Kingdom, India will only be the fourth country to perform a drone show,” Defence Ministry sources said.
Republic Day celebrations will begin from January 23 from this year, instead of January 24, in the honour of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
“Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the number of visitors will be substantially curtailed this year. We are looking at a range of 5,000-8,000 people but we have not yet finalised that. Last year, 25,000 visitors had taken part,” senior defence ministry officials told ANI.
The requests from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu to reconsider the inclusion of their tableaux in the Republic Day parade cannot be revisited, the defence ministry said, adding that the states have been informed about the reasons for their non-inclusion.
