Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru laid foundation of India's development: Vijay Bahuguna

DEHRADUN: Describing Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as the architect of modern India, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna today said the edifice of the country's development stands on the foundations laid by him.

Inaugurating a Nehru Heritage Centre here to mark the 124th birth anniversary of independent India's first prime minister, celebrated across the country as Children's Day, Bahuguna said Pandit Nehru laid the foundation of a new India and the nation's development.

"Pandit Nehru's contribution to the formation of a secular India can never be forgotten. It was he who spread Mahatma Gandhi's message of non-violence across the world through the NAM (Non Aligned Movement)," he said.

The Nehru Heritage Centre has been developed out of a ward at the old jail campus where the former prime minister was incarcerated four times during the freedom movement.

Describing the Heritage Centre as the "Mecca of Indian democracy", Bahuguna said a library will be set up there and books written by Pandit Nehru will be kept.

He also advocated inclusion of excerpts from Nehru's "Discovery of India" and from biographies of other great men associated with India's struggle for freedom in the academic syllabus.