The Vande Mataram Red Fort tribute will open the 80th Independence Day on August 15, with the National Song to be sung from the ramparts of the monument for the first time as Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads the celebrations, the Ministry of Defence said on Monday.

Vande Mataram will be sung on the Prime Minister's arrival. He will then unfurl the National Flag and deliver his address to the nation.

This year marks 150 years of the National Song, and the singing at the fort is planned to mark that occasion, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh told a press conference in New Delhi. The song, drawn from the writing of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, was a rallying cry through the freedom movement, and its 150th year sits alongside a season of patriotic commemorations the government has marked through 2026.

The Vande Mataram Red Fort formation

The Vande Mataram Red Fort display runs the length of the rampart. A floral arrangement on both sides of the wall will carry the words of the National Song, while opposite the Rampart, on Gyanpath, 2,500 boy and girl cadets of the National Cadet Corps and My Bharat volunteers will form the words of Vande Mataram in Devanagari.

A Mi-17 helicopter of the Indian Air Force will fly overhead with a banner marking 150 years of the song, and shower flower petals on the crowd gathered below.

Bands across 343 locations

The tribute reaches well beyond Delhi.

Bands have been performing across the country since August 8 and will continue until August 15, at 343 locations in all. Taking part are the bands of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Indian Coast Guard, alongside those of the NCC, the Central Reserve Police Force, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the Central Industrial Security Force, the Sashastra Seema Bal, the Border Security Force, the Integrated Defence Staff, the Railway Protection Force and the Assam Rifles. Entry to the venues has been kept open to the public.

Gen Z takes the rampart

The celebrations this year turn on Gen Z, young India's part in building a developed nation by 2047. Nineteen students who won medals at the International Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematical Olympiads of 2026 have been invited, and will be seated on the rampart itself.

About 5,000 special guests, described as achievers from different walks of life, make up the wider list. Among the youth categories are innovators under national innovation programmes, interns from the Prime Minister Internship Scheme, founders of startups backed by the Startup India Seed Fund and other schemes, young people trained under the PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana, My Bharat volunteers, and beneficiaries under NAMASTE, PM AJAY and SEED. Students of Delhi government schools, picked through quizzes and competitions, are on the list too.

The invitations sit within a wider set of openings for young people in the defence sector.

Competitions in the run-up

The Ministry of Defence ran a set of contests with MyGov ahead of the day. An essay competition took the role of AI in building a developed India by 2047; a painting competition set India of 1947 against India of 2047; online quizzes covered the Constitution, women in the freedom movement, and the country's progress in space and nuclear technology. About 600 winners will be at the celebrations.

A guest list built around 2047

Beyond the Gen Z cohort, the invitations reach entrepreneurs, artisans and grass-roots workers. Women entrepreneurs under the PM Mudra Yojana, beneficiaries of PMAY(U), artisans under the PM Vishwakarma scheme, workers under the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan scheme, farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana and International Yoga Day volunteers all feature.

So do those the ministry called the silent warriors.

Street vendors under PM SVANidhi, urban sanitation workers under the Swachh Bharat Mission, Delhi Metro staff, workers from the Kartavya Path and Central Vista, and nursing orderlies from government hospitals in Delhi have been invited. More than 1,500 Delhi residents with roots across states and union territories will attend in traditional dress, set to present a microcosm of India at the fort.

View cutters behind the ceremony will show the country's progress in nuclear and space technology. The seating enclosures, named after rivers for Republic Day this year, have been named after major lakes of India for the fifteenth of August.