People hold Indian flag at a workshop ahead of the Republic Day celebrations, in Nagpur. (PTI Photo)
India is celebrating its 74th Republic Day this year. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the President of Egypt, is the chief guest for the parade on January 26. He reached India on Wednesday and said it's a "great privilege to be a guest of honour and participate in India's glorious national day". The parade comprises of spectacular military and cultural pageantry on Kartavya Path (renamed Rajpath) every year that displays India's military might. Republic Day 2023 will witness the debut march of women riders on Border Security Force's (BSF) Camel Contingent.
The contingent will take part in this year's Republic Day parade on Kartavya Path. Sonal, Nisha, Bhagwati, Ambika, Kusum, Priyanka, Kaushalya, Kajal, Bhawna and Hina would be among those 12 women riders of the BSF Camel Contingent marching from Vijay Chowk to the Red Fort through the traditional route.
Why is Republic Day celebrated on January 26?
While India its Independence Day on August 15 when it earned freedom from the British Rule, Republic Day commemorates the constitution coming into force. January 26 was the chosen date since it was on this day in 1929 that the Indian National Congress issued the Declaration of Indian Independence (Purna Swaraj), opposing the British Regime's Dominion status.
After gaining independence in 1947, Indian leaders quickly got down to the work of drafting a constitution. A committee was created on August 29 to draft a permanent constitution for independent India with Dr BR Ambedkar as its chairman. On November 4, 1947, the committee drafted the constitution and submitted it to the Constituent Assembly. The Assembly met in numerous sessions for nearly two years before finally adopting the Constitution. On January 24, 1950, the 308 members of the Assembly signed two handwritten versions of the agreement - one in Hindi and one in English - after much deliberation and a few changes.
The constitution came into effect two days later, on January 26, 1950, which completed India's transition to a sovereign republic.
The constitution replaced the British colonial Government of India Act (1935) as the country's governing text.
Republic Day 2023: A glimpse
Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud on Wednesday said that the electronic Supreme Court Reports (e-SCR) project will now start providing its judgements in various Indian scheduled languages from Republic Day. There are of 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. They include Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri.
Also Read | Indian Army Shares Video Of Army Personnel Practicing For Republic Day Parade
The Union Home Ministry announced medals for 901 police personnel drawn from the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and state forces. The tally includes 140 Police Medal for Gallantry.
Also, for the first time, a third-gender personnel from 'Bastar Fighters' will take part in the Republic Day Parade at Jagdalpur. 'Bastar Fighters' is a special unit of the Chhattisgarh Police that is deployed in the Maoist-affected areas of Bastar.