National Girl Child Day is celebrated on January 24th in order to raise awareness and promote the rights, education, health, and nutrition of the girl child across the country.
History
24th January is observed as National Girl Child Day. This day was first observed in 2008 and was an initiative commenced by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, to address and tackle issues related to the inequalities that the girl child faces in society. In addition, the day is also commemorated to promote the rights of the girl child and the importance of female education, health and nutrition.
Significance
On this day, various ministries, departments and organisations come together to organise events, fundraisers and campaigns to bring to light the inequalities faced by the girl child, and the importance of their empowerment. Every year the Women and Child Development Ministry announces a new theme for the day, around which activities are planned, and that same theme is kept as a goal for the coming year.
On this day the government launches all its major schemes and campaigns that are pertinent to child development, like- “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao”; “Save the Girl Child” and other programmes like free, discounted and subsidised education and reservation in school, colleges and universities.
Theme Of The Event
While the theme for 2022 is yet to be announced, the themes that followed in the past few years include:
2019- “Empowering girls for a brighter future”;
2020-“My voice, our common future”, and for
2021, it was “Digital Generation, Our Generation”.
This year’s National Girl Child Day will be held in congruence to the Republic Day celebration on the 26th of January, under the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. The celebration will see 75 women under the age of 20 being awarded for their contributions to the development of India.
In congruence with the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, the Ministry of Culture is organising an event titled “Umang Rangoli Utsav ”, wherein teams will create rangoli decorations in fifty special locations across the country. Rangolis spanning a kilometre will be designed on roads named after female freedom fighters and role models.
Additionally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will e-meet and interact with those facilitated as a part of the event and will also hand out the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar (PMRBP) along with Union Women and Child Development Minister, Smriti Irani and Minister of State, Munjpara Mahendrabhai.