A private business house in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, had attempted to create a new world record with over 100,000 of its employees singing the country's national anthem together at one point in one uniform on Monday, 6th May 2013.As a special and commemorative gift to the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, as 1,21,653 staff and workers of Sahara India Pariwar recited the National Anthem 'Jana Gana Mana' in unison at a place, eclipsing the current Guinness record of 42,813 persons held by Pakistan. The occasion was to attempt a place in the Guinness World Record. The patriotic fervour did not stop here, as more than one million staff at 4,512 offices of Sahara also sang the National Anthem together.
Chairman of the Sahara Group, Subrata Roy, while addressing the gathering at a stadium in Lucknow, expressed his delight as his company's attempt to create a new world record.Roy says he espouses a philosophy of "collective materialism" and according to Sahara's website, the group shares its profits between staff, its internal fund and social development activities and has never declared a dividend.
Written in Sanskritised Bangla, 'Jana Gana Mana' was first sung at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress on December 27, 1911. It was officially adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the National Anthem of India on January 24, 1950.
There were hundreds of onlookers -- men, women and youngsters from various cities of the state - who had congregated at Ramabai Ambedkar Rally Sthal, giving it a look of mini-Kumbh, as they settled down to take their final position for the record breaking attempt. Another interesting aspect of the event was the use of air-borne camera to capture the images of the participants, and helping the third party auditors in the counting and verification process.
When asked what prompted them to undertake this activity, Subrata Roy, managing worker and chairman, Sahara India Pariwar, said, "When I first came to know that Pakistan is holding the current world record, I thought that it should be India, which must have it. And with a dedicated team, we faced no challenges in accomplishing this goal."
Before the start of the event, Subrata Roy motivated the participants. During the event, the participants paid tributes to the martyrs, who laid down their lives for the country, by observing a two-minute silence. The male workers of Sahara were wearing a uniform of white shirt, black pants and black ties, while the women sported red saris (traditional wear).
Speaking to reporters before the event started, adjudicator Pravin Patel of Guinness World Records said, "For every 50 members of the crowd, a third-party auditor is on the job to come out with the accurate number of participants." After the record was officially confirmed, Patel said that it is one of the most disciplined performances he has seen so far.
“Asha Bhosle enters the Guinness World Records and was awarded a certificate for the most studio recordings (singles) for recording up to 11,000 solo, duet and chorus-backed songs and in over 20 Indian languages since 1947. She was conferred with this honour at the Asian awards function held in London,” said a statement released on the occasion.