Raksha Bandhan Army House celebrations saw girl students from schools across Delhi, Faridabad and Karnal tie Rakhis on General Dhiraj Seth, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), on Friday, in a gathering of 38 students and 14 faculty members from 14 schools.

38 students, 14 schools, three cities

Two of the participating institutions work with children who have additional needs.

Special schools among the Army House visitors

Children from an ASHA School for Special Children and from Rashtriya Virjanand Andh Kanya Vidyalaya, a school for visually impaired girls, were part of the group. The students also interacted with Gen Seth and Mrs Komal Seth, President of the Army Women's Welfare Association (AWWA), before Gen Seth encouraged them to pursue their aspirations with confidence, discipline and determination.


AWWA's welfare mandate reaches beyond a single ceremony

Mrs Seth's association has worked for the welfare of spouses, children and dependants of Army personnel since 1966, and counts among the largest welfare bodies of its kind in the country. It functions from the Corps level upwards.

The Raksha Bandhan Army House gathering came days after Gen Seth returned from an official visit to Nepal, where he received the honorary rank of General of the Nepali Army.

Raksha Bandhan Army House ties into a wider Bharat Raksha Parv tradition

The Army has for several years run Rakhi-tying interactions with its serving Chief under an initiative it describes as Bharat Raksha Parv, extending a similar exchange down to formations and units where soldiers serving away from home receive Rakhis from local schools, women's groups and community organisations. Friday's gathering was the latest instance of Gen Seth's public interactions this year beyond formal duty, following his meeting in July with the nine women officers of the Samudra Pradakshina expedition crew.

Celebrations reach soldiers from Ladakh to the Northeast

Students, women, NCC cadets, community organisations and citizens carried the same gesture to soldiers serving in operational and field areas across the country on Friday.

The exchange spanned Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, and extended to Sikkim, North Bengal and formations further into the Northeast, where schoolchildren, NCC cadets, women's groups, NGOs and local communities joined Army personnel in Rakhi-tying ceremonies.