PM Modi to Hold ‘Town Hall’ Meeting with Students to Share His Mantra on Beating Exam Stress

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a first by any sitting PM, will hold a ‘town hall gathering’ on February 16 with students from across the country in which he will stress upon the importance of adopting a stress-free, holistic approach towards education.

The venue of the event is likely to be Delhi’s Talkatora stadium or the Indira Gandhi arena with potentially hundreds of students in attendance. The PM will also take questions from students via social media and videoconferencing.

The idea behind the event is to take forward the need to develop stress-free attitude to exams, a pet subject for the Prime Minister and the topic of his new book, ‘Exam Warriors’. The book, Modi’s fifth and the first on this subject by a sitting PM, will be released on Saturday in the presence of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar.

This is not the first time Modi is addressing the issue of exam stress, a modern day scourge that is increasingly driving hundreds of children to harm themselves, including committing suicide. Last year, Modi, to the surprise of many, made exam stress the topic of his monthly “Mann Ki Baat” radio address to the nation.

A source involved in organising the upcoming town hall said, “It will bring him and the student community together in a youthful and interactive environment so they can discuss ways of holistic education without stress.”

In the past, the PM has exhorted students not to treat examinations as a matter of life and death. According to a national study, a student commits suicide in India every hour. A 2012 report by Britain’s Lancet magazine stated that India has one of the world’s highest suicide rates for youth aged 15 to 29.

Experts have repeatedly highlighted the need to tackle this issue, and the PM has tried to weigh in by speaking to students before the exam season every year. In last year’s “Mann Ki Baat”, his first for 2017, he asked students to “treat exams like festivals” and urged them not to take too much stress. “A happy mind is the secret of a good mark sheet,” he had said.

He also cited the example of former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who had once revealed that he had tried to join the Air Force and failed, but that did not stop him from becoming a brilliant scientist.

Modi’s book ‘Exam Warriors’ compiles nuggets from his radio addresses and anecdotes from his own life on how he coped with stress during exams. It inspires students to take up creative and physical activities to deal with stress.

The PM has also reached out to teachers and parents through the book, a source familiar with the book’s content said.