Panaji: While paying tributes to all the freedom fighters who sacrificed for the liberation of Goa from Portuguese rule, Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant said that the time is ripe for ‘Digital Kranti’ in the state.
Addressing a state level function on the occasion of Goa Revolution Day, Sawant on Saturday recalled the sacrifices of the freedom fighters to liberate Goa from Portuguese rule.
Goa Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai was present as the chief guest for the function. Sawant and Pillai along with other leaders paid tributes to the Martyrs’ memorial at Azad Maidan in Panaji on Saturday.
Goa Revolution Day is celebrated on June 18 to commemorate the public meeting held at Margao in the year 1946 during which Freedom Fighter Late Ram Manohar Lohia had given a clarion call of liberation.
“The time is ripe for the Digital Kranti in the state. The Digital Kranti should happen in the field of Education through National Education Policy and other initiatives,” the chief minister said.
Sawant said that the State government has already amended the syllabus to include Coding and Robotics as a part of school curriculum for sixth standard students.
The chief minister, who also holds Education Portfolio in the cabinet, said that the academia is working to include history of Goa as an integral of History Text Books in the Goa schools.
“We believe that the history should be told to the younger generation,” he said appealing the teachers to take on visit the students to renovated Aguada Jail complex where Freedom Fighters were lodged during pre-liberation period.
The chief minister said that the Aguada Jail complex has been converted into a museum by the government narrating the background behind this prison facility.
Remembering that Goa was liberated almost 16 years after India’s Independence, Sawant recalled the Satyagraha in the year 1955 when 70 Satyagrahis were shot and killed at the border by the Portuguese.
The chief minister said that there are many Satyagrahis who had participated in the 1955 event who never registered themselves as Freedom Fighters. Sawant stated that the State government is in the process of listing them all and will also write to the union government to include them in the list of National Freedom Fighters.
