Apna Nawada’s Virtual Seminar: Shakti Singh Puts Students on the Forefront of India’s Anti-Coronavirus Fight

Shakti Singh

Students can do a yeoman's service in propagating the benefits of the national Coronavirus vaccination programme and to drive home this point was none other than noted Students' Right Activist Shakti Singh. The former President of the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) was addressing a 5-day virtual seminar organized by the citizen based online portal Apna Nawada. The topic of the seminar was "Role of the students during Covid period."

Addressing thousands of students from Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, who had connected virtually on the occasion, Shakti Singh said, "It is the foremost duty of students across India to join the country, especially the frontline workers, in their fight against this virus and motivate more and more Indians to give their hesitation and go for the vaccination at an earliest." He recalled several student activities and programmes that he himself had organized while he was DUSU president. He said, "Students have the potential to build a better society than the one into which they are born. As a student leader, I have myself organized several such campaigns to promote awareness regarding issues of national importance."

He exhorted the students to do similar good work against Coronavirus as well because right now, he added, the country was dealing with a serious misinformation campaign from anti-India forces. Shakti Singh said, "There are forces spreading misgivings against the vaccine, which is completely indigenous. As a result, people living in urban as well as rural areas of the country are hesitating to go for vaccination and, in turn, this hesitation is hampering India's fight against Covid-19." He added, "Though India managed to come up trumps against Covid-19, despite every chance of its fight going haywire considering that our country has a very large and diverse population, but under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's able leadership, we crossed every obstacle and created milestones in our fight against this dreaded virus."

Now with this ‘Swadeshi' Vaccine, Shakti Singh said, it was the responsibility of the student community to go out there, especially into the villages and make people understand the benefits of vaccination. While addressing the virtual seminar, Shakti Singh also said that it was necessary to counter the misinformation campaign at different levels, so that the momentum of the vaccination programme is not disturbed.

The seminar was organized by Apna Nawada, a leading online portal in Bihar. It was founded in 2014 by journalism student Suman Shekhar. The portal is regularly involved in campaigns to create awareness against the Covid crisis through proper propagation of expert information & knowledge against this virus among the public. While talking to the students, Suman Shekhar informed the students that for the past one year, his portal had been running different campaigns to help locals get over this pandemic. Suman Shekhar has completed his graduation from Delhi University and he is now a full-time public worker.