People from nearly 35 countries, after completing the International Yoga Festival at Parmarth Niketan, joined the head of the organisation and the co-founder of Global Interfaith WASH Alliance (GIWA) Swami Chidanand Saraswati and the secretary general, GIWA Sadhvi Bhagawati in celebrating the breaking of the world record in terms of the number of signatures registered on a flag for a cause-saying ‘no’ to child marriage and ‘yes’ to education.
UNICEF and the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance have joined forces during the Kumbh Mela on behalf of the girl child to break a historic Guinness record for the most number of signatures on a flag (over 100,000) for the cause. Senior functionaries of Parmarth Niketan said that having come close on the heels of the International Women's Day, the development was doubly relevant.
The flag when unfurled is nearly the size of a football field and it provided ample room for the lakhs of signatures which the campaign has spawned, a press release issued by Parmarth Niketan said.
It further said that the campaign would not stop after making the record and the flag would continue to make its way through Lucknow while collecting more and more signatures and endorsements. The campaign is meant to send the message ‘Yes to education; no to child marriage’ among the masses of the people, said the organisers of the event and added that during the Kumbh Mela, the flag had seen signatures of a number of eminent persons like the Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Governor of Uttar Pradesh Ram Naik, Governor of Madhya Pradesh, Anandiben Patel, Governor of Uttarakhand Baby Rani Maurya, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Gujarat Vijay Rupani, Chief Minister of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar and the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Trivendra Singh Rawat.
While regional differences vary, on an average, 27% of marriages in India are that of a bride who is under the age of 18 and Uttar Pradesh tops the list, the release said and added that such under-age marriages beget violence, diseases such as HIV/AIDS and poverty.