The government of Uttar Pradesh in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, 24 November, approved a proposal to name the Ayodhya airport after the Hindu god Ram, calling it the Maryada Purshottam Shriram Airport.
Yogi Adityanath’s UP Cabinet also decided to submit the proposal to the Union Civil Aviation Ministry.
In a statement, the UP government said that the land acquisition process for the airport was underway. The state government is also occupied with the development of Ayodhya as a global religious tourism spot. It is hiring a global consultant for the development of Ayodhya’s infrastructure, conservation, tourism etc, Hindustan Times reported.
Keshav Prasad Maurya, the deputy chief minister celebrated the naming of the airport in a tweet, saying that the state government “is committed towards positioning Shriram Lala’s city Ayodhya among the top religious places in the world.”
The cabinet also gave its approval to 21 other proposals on Tuesday, one of which is the ordinance Uttar Pradesh Vidhi Viruddh Dharm Samparivartan Pratishedh Adhyadesh 2020 - an ordinance that prohibits unlawful religious conversions by the means of force, coercion, marriage and so on, as a bid to prohibit the alleged ‘love jihad’ instances in the country.
Five other BJP-ruled states have also touted laws to combat the supposed scourge of 'Love Jihad’: Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka and Assam.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)
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