Over 7,800 youths of Jammu and Kashmir have embarked on educational and national integration tours sponsored by the army under its ‘Operation Sadbhavana’ in the past three years.
“In the past three years, army has conducted a total of 264 educational and national integration tours and in each tour, a group usually comprises approximately 30 members,” a defence spokesman said.
He said that the army’s Northern Command has been organising trips for students and youths from Jammu and Kashmir to the rest of the country from time to time.
“These trips are aimed at providing them exposure to the development in the other parts of India, the new educational opportunities, other cultures and religious sites that demonstrate the secular character of the county, India’s constitutional institutions and heritage sites,” he said.
He said that ‘Operation Sadbhavana’ was not only a tactical or strategic maneuver of the army but it was also a resolve by men in uniform to come closer to the populace and develop a bond of mutual faith and trust which a soldier enjoys across the county.
“Sadbhavana means harmony. Operation Sadbhavana is social responsibility initiative by the army… The armed forces are partners in development of the country and the state,” he said.
