UNICEF Applauds National Stamp Designs for Child Rights...

The Department of Posts, in association with UNICEF on the occasion of Children's Day in India (Nov 14) announced the winners of the 2019 Stamp Design Competition, whilst also commemorating thirty years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The top two winning entries have been adapted as stamps.

More than 14,000 children from across India participated with stamp designs in the annual competition run by the Department of Posts, this year in partnership with the Ministry of Communication, the Government of India and UNICEF. The theme for this year’s competition was child rights.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United Nations on 20 November 1989, and is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. India ratified the CRC in 1992, committing to protect and promote all rights of children. In partnership with Government, civil society, communities and children across India, UNICEF is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the CRC and 70 years in India working for the rights of every child. 

Speaking on this year’s stamp design competition, a senior official from the Department of Posts said, 

“Every year, the Department of Posts holds a Stamp Design Competition on Children’s Day inviting drawings, paintings and sketches from children on a particular theme. The theme of this year’s Children’s Day Stamp Design Competition was ‘Child Rights’.” 

On the partnership with UNICEF, the Department official continued, 

“The partnership with UNICEF this year has served twin objectives: on one hand, it is generating awareness about philately and on the other hand, it is creating awareness about child rights. Children have sent us excellent art work on what the CRC means for them. Today, children clearly identify new challenges facing them as well as available opportunities. Young people are speaking out for their right to education, demanding an end to discrimination, calling for end to violence, striking for action on the climate crisis, campaigning for digital reform and calling on leaders to protect their future.”

The winning entries – three winners and five consolation prices – will be awarded at a national event in New Delhi on 20 November 2019, World Children’s Day. While the top two designs on child rights are adapted as stamps, the remaining are used for preparing various philatelic items including first day cover, brochure etc. The 1st prize winner will win a cash prize of INR 50,000. The 2nd and 3rd prize winners will receive INR 25,000 and INR 10,000 respectively. The five consolation prizes are worth INR 5,000 each. 

Congratulating the winners and all children who participated, Foroogh Foyouzat, Deputy Representative for UNICEF in India said, 

“Indian children have brought the Convention on the Rights of the Child to life with their inspiring and beautiful stamp designs. Every child who participated is a winner in our shared responsibility to work tirelessly so that every child in India realizes all of his or her rights. In their entries, we can see girls and boys dreams for themselves and for all children. At a time when children and childhood itself are faced with new challenges in a rapidly changing world, these powerful images by children are a great reminder that we must all do more to put child rights at the heart of India now and for all future generations.” 

The following children have been declared as Winners:

First prize winner              :     Ms. Nidhi Rahul Mhatre (15), Boisar, Maharashtra

Second prize winner          :     Ms. Vibhushi Agarwal (12), Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Third prize winner            :      Ms. Deepali Midha (17), Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Consolation prize winners:      (i) Master Rupam Mahanty (10), Jamshedpur, Jharkhand

                                                 (ii) Ms. Vaidehi Vikas Shirsath (17), Bengaluru, Karnataka

                                                 (iii) Ms. Arya Thapa (14), Tadong, Sikkim

                                                 (iv) Master Sarvesh Suresh Joshi (07), Parbhani, Maharashtra

                                                 (v) Ms. Kratika Chittoriya (14), Nagra, Rajasthan

Bloodless Innovation To Diagnose Malaria Fever...

Sometimes, a number of initiatives and innovations make the whole world come across as one family. Case in point, a youth in Uganda has accepted the challenge to do something significant for humankind.

This 24-year-old engineer from Uganda, Brian Gitta, has invented a faster and low-cost method to test malaria fever symptoms in a patient. For this incredible achievement, Brian has won Africa’s top award for innovation in engineering.

The prize by the UK Royal Academy of Engineering for Africa aims to develop the entrepreneurial and innovative skills of engineers. These kinds of initiatives definitely motivate and inculcate creative skills in youth to focus on and tackle some of the world’s most challenging problems in any field. The young innovators who identify such challenges dedicate themselves to work towards finding out an optimum and most feasible solution that caters to masses.

The first thing that would come to anybody’s mind is what makes his invention unique and better than previous testing methods. The answer is quite simple. This new testing method to diagnose malaria symptoms in a patient is completely bloodless. In fact, there is no need for a fresh blood sample at all in this testing method.

Rather the device has an ability to identify deforming red blood cells (RBCs) in the body that indicate the presence of malaria parasite. What happens actually is the parasite takes charge of the vacuoles in red blood cells in the patient’s body when he or she gets infected. This results in a change in the cell’s shape. 

The new testing device diagnoses this change in the body of the patient without taking a blood sample. Its functioning is quite simple too. It needs just to clip the device onto a patient’s finger to diagnose malaria fever symptoms.

A red beam of light then scans for changes in red blood cells in the body. These changes could be in the color, shape, and concentration of the RBCs. Another plus point of this device is its use that is quite simple and doesn’t require any specialist to operate. Once clipped on a patient’s finger, the device produces results within a few minutes.

The device delivers the test results immediately to the patient’s cell phone. These wonderful and innovative features make this device so simple that it becomes ideally the most suitable for remote areas that lack proper healthcare facilities. 

That means remote rural areas will get benefited the most where a lot of lives are lost just because of lack of facilities or facilities being too far from their areas that it would take a lot of time to visit those locations.

Given lack of diagnosis of malaria fever symptoms, a patient doesn’t receive the right treatment in time. A lack of transport facilities in such areas further deteriorates the cases because of loss of precious time and attention a patient needs. Gitta has named this device ‘Matibabu’ meaning ‘treatment’ in Swahili. The device to detect and identify signs and symptoms of malaria has thus become a point of discussion in the global arena in no time. 

In all other instances, it is always better to use products by reliable brands like Goodknight to keep mosquitoes at bay and avoid diseases like malaria. :)

Knotty Tales By Gauri And Pallavee: Of Creative Endeavors...

What?
Knotty Tales Pop-Up

When?
Wednesday,​ ​August 17

Where?
The Lodhi

Mumbai's sought-after event designer - Knotty Tales - a bold venture by Gauri Pradhan Tejwani and Pallavee Rajniesh Duggall - had come to Delhi for its maiden show. And, I was invited to witness the same. 

First things first, I must applaud Gauri and Pallavee's entrepreneurial spirit for going ahead with an idea that aims to showcase sheer creativity and talent - providing budding designers of various genres and forms across the country with a common platform to pitch their products to the masses. 

Encompassing fashion, food, jewelry, beauty, home-decor - you name it, and Knotty Tales hosted it. It was an exhibition that was a potpourri of flair, art and appreciation of skilled presentation, 

It was very endearing to see that most of the participating brands were being steered to success by women, either solely, or in partnership. Either way, it was a welcome move by Gauri and Pallavee to have collaborated with such inspiring creators. 

As matter of fact, some of these participants had come from not just Mumbai and Delhi, but also from other cities spreads across the length and breadth of our country. 

 ~~~ 

Some of the brands which caught my fancy were: 

• Arture - handbags, wallets, purses - made of Cork, non-leather, eco-friendly. 

Arture

• Clutch'D - hand-embroidered clutches, selling in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, and Chennai. 

Clutch'D

• Bobo Calcutta - artistry on apparel from Calcutta - art which you can wear! 

Bobo Calcutta

Artistic Handbags from Bobo

• Bling Accessories by Srishti Gandhi - one-stop-shop for accessories, based in Delhi. 

Bling Accessories

• Crave Connect - fashionable footwear - quality designer footwear. 

Crave Connect

• Mommy A To Z - cutesy baby clothes - kids apparel - for all occasions! 

Mommy A-Z

• Dhora - jewelry handcrafted from Jaipur. 

Dhora

 ~~~ 

I'm sure all the participating brands and budding designers at Knotty Tales would scale the heights of success in their endeavors sooner or later. Kudos to Gauri and Pallavee for having provided them with such an ingenious platform to showcase their artistic renditions! :)

PADE --- Art --- Day 16

Brainstorm your emotions - Think of Such Art

That Which compels you to hum the strings, of your heart - Such Art

Think a bit more of  the ones of giving, living and listening - Such Art

Try to gain insight into Nature's Excellence - Such Art

Can You Guess This Art Form?

Think Hard! Give It A Try!

(The Two Art pieces You Saw Above Are Nature's Masterpieces - Crabs' Dens In Dug Up Sand - Taken at Radhanagar Beach, Havelock Island, 2013)

Glass Painting

Worli Painting

Sand Art At Puri Beach, 2007

(This painting above was made by my daughter's friend and artist --- Ancy Mathew, residing in Kerala)

Is your perception obliging you to pick up that brush and start - Such Art?

Reminding you of its diversity - Sand, Glass, Worli - Such Art...

Or that of Forgotten Treasures - Quilling, Cross Stitch or Engraved - Such Art?

Are you Mathematically inclined to point out Fractals? - Such Art...

Mandelbrot Set - A Kind Of Fractal

Cross Stitch Masterpiece By My Mother...

God Resides Even In Stone!

I'll tell you what all stirs me --- Such Art!

My beach trips and some invaluable collections --- Such Art!

A Sea - Shelly Peacock And Mouse --- Such Art!

A Natural Skully Shell And A Ring As Well --- Such Art!

Shelly Souvenirs From Kanyakumari, 2008 

Is That A Puppy Face Or Skull?
You Decide!
Tamil Nadu, 2008

Unique Collection For The Jewellery Knick - Knacks
A Discovery While Relaxing At The Beach
My Very Own Leopard Spotted Shell Ring!

~~~

This post marks my fourth 'Shutterbug Of The Day Badge' for Day 16. The first three were Rules, Street & Windows. 

Heartfelt Thanks To The Organizers - Ritu and Sfurti!

~~~

This post is my entry for PADE - Day 16 -  Art by Sfurti JuztaMom and Ritu KT's ToRaveAbout.

All entries for PADE Day 16 can be found here and here.

Gaps Between Educational Reforms And Education System In India

Reforms are always the need of the society. Those who lack proper focus of the destination and the path to be followed are left in doldrums. It has become so true about the bureaucratic system and the corrupt people of today's India.

Another so called thoughtful but not at all practical reform introduced at the school level is CCE system. Comprehensive and continuous evaluation of the child sounds good but it was introduced in such a hurry that the results are far from the expectations. This system's goal is to lessen the burden of rote learning but ministers, bureaucrats and top officials who made the steps to follow are not in the practical day to day interaction with the students. Only the teacher concerned knows the fact that the burden has lessened in the form of rote learning but has transformed to the form of preparing endless assignments, projects, models, charts, scrap files, activity files etc.to the extent which is mechanical for the child as their number is too many at secondary level.

If the number of activities is reduced, then we can still expect the child to do them in the class itself and hence the actual purpose can be solved. Also the emphasis should be on the content and creativity and not on just decorating the file and pasting the data downloaded through the internet. Also it will reduce the mushrooming of shops which are providing readymade material to the students instead of them doing the work themselves. Another angle to this is that poor children suffer as they have to spend a lot on buying the stationery required which is increasingly becoming fancy (a flourishing business for stationery shops).