Thousands of Indians have braved chilly morning temperatures to gather on a ceremonial boulevard in the capital New Delhi to watch a display of the country\u2019s military power and cultural diversity, though the colourful spectacle was curtailed by the\u00a0COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Nearly 500 schoolchildren, folk dancers, police and military battalions, floats and stunt performers on motorbikes paraded from the presidential palace through the refurbished, tree-lined Rajpath Boulevard on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
President Ram Nath Kovind took the salute from the marching columns, which also included a camel-mounted Border Security Force regiment, its moustachioed riders led by shiny brass bands with tubas.<\/p>\n
The 90-minute parade ended with a flypast featuring 75 air force fighters, including Rafale jets, transport planes and helicopters.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the National War Memorial in New Delhi, where he laid a wreath as he paid his respects during a ceremony also attended by military personnel.<\/p>\n
Only double-vaccinated adults and single-dose vaccinated children of 15 and above were allowed to attend the parade.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thousands of Indians have braved chilly morning temperatures to gather on a ceremonial boulevard in the capital New Delhi to watch a display of the country\u2019s military power and cultural diversity, though the colourful spectacle was curtailed by the\u00a0COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 500 schoolchildren, folk dancers, police and military battalions, floats and stunt performers on motorbikes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.q8india.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}