Madurai Kamaraj University wins National Youth Parliament Competition

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Prithviraj Chavan on Friday gave away the awards to the winners of the ninth National Youth Parliament Competition for universities and colleges. The Running Parliamentary Shield and Trophy for standing first in this competition was won by Madurai Kamaraj University from Madurai (Tamil Nadu). Besides the main prize, merit trophies were also given to University of Mumbai, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Jadhavpur University (Kolkata) and Janardan Rai Nagar Rajasthan Vidyapeeth (Udaipur) for standing first in their respective groups. During the occasion, the students of Madurai Kamaraj University staged the short sitting of their prize winning "Youth Parliament". Congratulating the winners, Prithviraj Chavan said, "It is our prime duty to maintain dignity, unity and integrity of the nation. The undemocratic means adopted by some to seek solution needs to be rendered irrelevant in the parliamentary system." He further emphasized that social changes are gradual and should be achieved through discussion and persuasion and not through violence. Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs has been organizing the Youth Parliament Competitions for universities and colleges since 1997-98. 36 institutions spread all over India competed in the ninth National Youth Parliament Competition. The competition aims at inculcating the spirit of self-discipline, tolerance of diverse opinion, righteous expression of views and other virtues of a democratic way of life among the younger generations.