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National Youth Day

Context:

  • National Youth Day 2022: Every year on January 12, India celebrates National Youth Day, also known as Yuva Diwas, to commemorate the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda who was one of the most prominent philosophers, monks, and thinkers of India.
  • This day was first declared as National Youth Day in 1984 by the government of India to pay tribute and honour the teachings of Vivekananda. Since then, Rashtriya Yuva Diwas is celebrated all across the country.
  • Every year, the government of India decides the theme of National Youth Day, which is different from the previous one and purely based on the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. This year the theme for National Youth Day 2022 is “It’s all in the mind,” which is a key teaching of Vivekananda.

About Swami Vivekananda

  • Birth:He was born as Narendranath Datta on 12th January, 1863.
  • In 1893, upon the request of Maharaja Ajit Singh of the Khetri State, he took the name ‘Vivekananda.’

Contributions:

 

  • Introduced the world to the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga.
  • He preached ‘neo-Vedanta’,an interpretation of Hinduism through a Western lens, and believed in combining spirituality with material progress.
  • Laid the greatest emphasis on educationfor the regeneration of our motherland. Advocated a man-making character-building education.
  • Best known for his speech at the World Parliament of Religion in Chicagoin 1893.
  • Spelt out thefour pathways of attaining moksha from the worldly pleasure and attachment in his books – Raja-yoga, Karma-yoga, Jnana-yoga and Bhakti-yoga.
  • Netaji Subhas Chandra Bosehad called Vivekananda the “maker of modern India.”
Associated Organisations:

 

  • He was thechief disciple of the 19th-century mystic Ramakrishna Paramhansa and established the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897.
  • Ramakrishna Mission is an organization which works in the area of value-based education, culture, health, women’s empowerment, youth and tribal welfare and relief and rehabilitation.
  • In 1899, he established the Belur Math, which became his permanent abode.
  • Death:He died at Belur Math in 1902. Belur Math, located in West Bengal, is the headquarters of Ramakrishna Math & Ramakrishna Mission.

Source: THE HINDU.