New Delhi : : The Ministry of Culture has announced the launch of ‘Vande Bharatam- Nritya Utsav’, an All-India dance competition as part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. The prime objective of this competition is to select the top dancing talent from across the country and provide them the opportunity to perform during the cultural programme at the Republic Day Parade 2022. This final performance will take place on January 26, 2022 at Rajpath, India Gate (New Delhi). Smt. Meenakshi Lekhi announced this during a press briefing in New Delhi while also launching the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav Mobile App. Minister of State for Culture, Smt. Lekhi said on the occasion, “Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi has regularly stressed that during this 75th year celebrations, we should celebrate and showcase our cultural greatness as well as provide a vision of bright future of India through the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav."The Vande Bharatam group dance competition will open digital entries from 17th November 2021 for the district level. The competition which will be held progressively at District, then State, Zonal, and finally culminating at the National Level will provide participants with an opportunity to perform in front of an august audience including the Hon’ble President at Rajpath. Participants can perform in of the four dance categories, namely, Classical, Folk, Tribal and Fusion/Contemporary and ultimately 480 dancers will be eventually selected as winners.Smt. Lekhi stressed that, "PM Modi has envisaged that the celebrations should be filled with our age-old traditional culture of dance, deshbhakti ke geet, lori and rangoli amongst others."The Minister also said that the Prime Minister has envisioned Azadika Amrit Mahotsav in the spirit of Jan Bhagidari. It is important to take the celebrations and programmes to the grass root level involving the people from across India. Also, connecting the youth to our heritage and culture is an essential component of Azadika Amrit Mahotsav, she explained. She further added that we have to take the entire country forward with a spirit of Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat. "Cherishing our Indianess together is what is the goal for Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav." SmtLekhi also informed that Culture Ministry has developed a website and mobile application especially for this event which will cover all aspects of the event and provide information regarding the competition to the people. The mobile app and website will be publically available from 17th November 2021. “District level participation will be accepted only through the website and/or mobile application. These will showcase the guidelines and other useful information regarding the competition”, she added.