School students from Grade 3 to 12 have a fresh chance to write, paint and film their way into a national honour. CBSE has told all its affiliated schools to run Project Veer Gatha 6.0, the annual activity built around India’s Gallantry Award winners and the country’s warrior traditions. Schools must finish activities at their own level and then upload their best entries on the MyGov portal, with the upload window opening from 5 October 2026.
The project is run by the Ministry of Defence along with the Ministry of Education for 2026-27. Students take up interdisciplinary, art-integrated work as individual projects: poems, paragraphs, essays, paintings, drawings, multimedia presentations and short videos on anchoring, storytelling or reporting of war.
What CBSE Veer Gatha 6.0 asks students to do
Work is split by stage, and the word limits change as students go up the grades:
| Category | Grades | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Preparatory Stage | Grade 3 to 5 | Poem or Paragraph (150 words), Painting, Drawing |
| Middle Stage | Grade 6 to 8 | Poem or Paragraph (300 words), Painting, Drawing, Multimedia Presentation, Short Video |
| Secondary Stage | Grade 9 to 12 | Poem or Essay (750 words), Painting, Drawing, Multimedia Presentation, Short Video |
Suggested topics include writing about a role model who is a Gallantry Award winner and the values learnt from their life, or a warrior who inspires the student, such as Prithviraj Chauhan, King Kharavela of Kalinga, Shivaji, the warriors of the 1857 Mutiny or Tribal Uprising.
Key dates and how entries are submitted
- Till 4 October 2026: Virtual or face-to-face interactions of Gallantry Award winners with schools, and schools conduct and evaluate the activities on their own.
- 5 October to 19 October 2026: Schools upload one best entry per category, a total of four entries per school, on the MyGov portal.
The Ministry of Defence will organise virtual or face-to-face awareness sessions for schools across the country; the list of venues and timing will be shared later.
Each school picks its four best entries as follows:
- Category 1, Preparatory Stage (Grade 3 to 5): 1 best entry
- Category 2, Middle Stage (Grade 6 to 8): 1 best entry
- Category 3, Secondary Stage (Grade 9 to 12): 1 best entry for Grade 9 to 10 and 1 best entry for Grade 11 to 12
Schools whose highest grade goes only up to Grade 5, 8 or 10 still send four entries, with the board setting out how those four are split. CBSE has asked schools not to wait for the last date; the moment activities are done and a best entry is shortlisted, they should upload it. CBSE affiliated schools abroad will also upload entries online after evaluating them in school.
Winners and prizes
Winners will be declared at three levels:
- National (Super 100): 100 winners in all, with 25 from Category 1, 25 from Category 2 and 50 from Category 3 (25 from Grade 9 to 10 and 25 from Grade 11 to 12). Earlier Veer Gatha national winners will not be counted again.
- State or UT level: 8 winners, two from each category, not including Super 100 students.
- District level: 4 winners, one from each category, not including Super 100 or State/UT winners.
Each national winner gets a cash prize of Rs. 10,000 from the Ministry of Defence, and all winners receive certificates. State, UT and district winners will be felicitated by their respective authorities.
Evaluation follows fixed rubrics. For essays, paragraphs, poems, paintings and videos, the maximum score is 16 marks across originality, presentation, subject-specific criteria and relevance to the topic. For essays and paragraphs, going over the word limit by 50 words or more costs 2 marks, and work not relevant to the topic scores zero.
Schools have also been asked to set up a dedicated ‘Veer Gatha Corner’ focussing on gallantry awardees and ‘Samarik Parampara’, the military traditions and strategies of great warriors and soldiers.
For reference material, schools can visit www.gallantryawards.gov.in and the NCERT book on Paramvir Chakra awardees at https://ncert.nic.in/pdf/publication/otherpublications/veergatha.pdf. Students who want a shot at the Super 100 should start their projects now and get their best entry to the school well before the upload window shuts on 19 October 2026.