The tricolour can be flown at night too

Indian citizens can now fly the national flag even at night. This is subject to the condition that the flagpole is over 100 feet and the flag itself well-illuminated. The home ministry took the decision following a proposal by industrialist Naveen Jindal, who had earlier won a court battle in the 1990s to fly the tricolour as a fundamental right of every citizen. In a communication to the Congress MP from Kurukshetra, the ministry said it had no objection to the installation of “giant flagpoles for flying the national flag day and night at various places’’. Jindal had said that the flag was to be flown in “as far as possible between sunrise and sunset’’ as per the flag code of India, but it was a common practice worldwide for massive national flags to be flown day and night on monumental flagpoles of 100 feet and above in height. To bolster his case, he had cited the examples of Malaysia, Jordon, Abu Dhabi, North Korea, Brazil, Mexico and Turkmenistan where monumental flags are flown at night.