Kalyan Ganesh mandal's display highlights NEET paper leak, education corruption

The Jai Ganesh Mitra Mandal in Kalyan East has turned its festival display this year into more than a spectacle, using it to raise the issue of corruption in education and student suicides linked to paper leaks.

Paper leaks and corruption in the education sector directly affect the future of students and their parents, and the mandal said this needed to be discussed openly. The display was designed around the desperation that pushes some young people to take the extreme step of suicide after failure or due to flaws in the system. Through the display, the mandal also recalled that Lokmanya Tilak had started Ganeshotsav to bring people of all castes and religions together and to spread social awareness.

Devotees have been turning out in large numbers to see the display. The Jai Ganesh Mandal in Kalyan East has presented a display on a social issue every year, and it is this tradition that has drawn crowds again this year.

The mandal is completing 40 years this year and is known as Netivali cha Raja. It has earlier presented displays on themes such as pride in the Marathi language and online lotteries. This year's theme is the NEET paper leak, after which several students died by suicide. The display also depicts that the examination system in the country is not transparent, which students and their families have to bear the cost of, while the examination process is far more transparent in Western countries. It also shows that this transparency is even greater in China.

The display was conceived by mandal president Krishna Patil, and mandal office-bearers Sunil Kene, Nitin Bansode, Vilas Bait, Anand Shinde and Satish Sonawane also contributed to preparing it.