Rajnath rolls out 'Student Police Cadet' project in Gurugram
Gurugram, July 21 : Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday here rolled out the 'Student Police Cadet' (SPC) programme, under which high school students across the country will be taught to become much more responsible citizens.
Speaking at the formal launch at the Tau Devi Lal Stadium here, he said that the SPC programme, for students of classes 8 and 9, will be implemented across the country with a vision for citizens to respect and follow laws willingly, practice responsible behaviour towards others, demonstrate empathy for weaker sections of society, and participate in tackling community issues.
A sum of Rs 67 crore had sanctioned to states for the programme's implementation and each school would get Rs 50,000 for educational aids, training and contingency for the programme, to be carried out on pilot basis in all states and union territories.
Rajnath Singh said that the venture aims to unlock the potential of India's youth and make them capable of becoming social leaders with global vision guided by humanitarian values. India has the world's largest population of youth and there is a paradigm shift in the policing function from enforcement to facilitation of law, he said.
Referring to the ill-effects of rapid modernization and incidents aired on news, TV and social media on daily basis, he said that they put a negative impact on entire society and there was a need to give moral character education at both home and school.
"Though it is a tough task and would take a long time, but we have to achieve this... Keeping this in view, SPC is being launched at national level to help in building a bridge between the police and the larger community through school students by inculcating values and ethics in them," he added.
Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, who was also present, said that the SPC programme works on Education-Values-Law linkage, to enable school community to create safe school environment with confident and discipline youth.
It will also facilitate development of good health, physical and mental fitness, self control and discipline in youth while enabling youth to work with police in this project, he said, adding teachers will be trained by police to act as Community Police Officers (CPO) and Additional CPOs.
Noting that students of classes 8 and 9 form nearly 4 crore of the 26 crore students across the country, Javadekar said that programme, including classes, physical training, field visits, SPC camps and practical projects, will be first introduced in the government schools and later will be extended to the private educational institutes.
Students will be studying about law and constitution, communication skill, disaster management health and hygiene and about setting goal, he said.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar described the SPC programme a milestone and assured that priority would be given to these cadets in the Haryana Police recruitment drives.
Over 7,000 students, both boys and girls, from across the country participated in the launch programme.
Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh, who is the Gurugram MP, Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir, Haryana minister Rao Narbir Singh and several MLAs were also present.
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FIDE Women's World Cup final: Humpy draws with Divya in first game
Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).
