Gymnasium foundation

Art, culture and youth affairs minister Shiv Chandra Ram with department principal secretary Vivek Kumar Singh laid the foundation stone of a gymnasium building at the main secretariat premises on Wednesday.

The G+3 gymnasium building would be constructed within a year with all modern equipment at an estimated cost of Rs 10 crore, of which Rs 3.68 crore would be spent on construction while the rest of the amount would be used to purchase equipment and other infrastructure.

Ram said: "The gymnasium will have a separate complex for men and women. There will be a separate hall for yoga and aerobics, table tennis, sauna bath and other facilities." The minister also said the gymnasium would be of great help to many as the private gymnasiums charge a hefty fee from its customers.

However, the minister refused to say if the gymnasium would be open for general public or only for state government employees.

Convention

Experts spoke on prevailing circumstances in the country regarding the right to freedom of expression at a convention organised by Jan Abhiyan, a non-government organisation at Gandhi Sanghralaya on Wednesday.

CPI-ML (Liberation) leader Arvind Kumar Sinha, who was one of the speakers, criticised the Union government's role in the Jawaharlal Nehru University episode. "The government is mainly targeting the non-Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad outfits. Who gave cabinet minister Giriraj Singh the right to say that those who opposed Modi should go to Pakistan? He had expressed anti-democratic thoughts but no action was taken against him. It's high time because the autonomy of country's one of the noted institutions (referring to JNU) is at stake.