Karnataka - Bangalore

The league of extraordinary children

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Proud moment: Bravery award winners (from left) Pranav Patil, Omkar Malagowda, Sachin A. Watekar and Spoorthi S. Patil, at the Children’s Day celebrations at Bal Bhavan in Bangalore on Friday.

BANGALORE: If the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted his birthday to be celebrated as Children’s Day, there should have been a strong reason for it. After all, if not for this special day, many a brave child would have remained an unsung hero.

The Children’s Day at Bal Bhavan in Cubbon Park in the city on Friday, truly belonged to children and more so to those extraordinary children who made their presence felt with their acts of bravery, and their achievements in culture, music, theatre, art and sport. The adults who gathered in this small hall applauded and cheered the young heroes.

It was an occasion to honour the achievers and brave children with the State Children’s Day awards.

Four children — Omkar Malagowda (11) of Chikkodi in Belgaum district, Sachin A. Watekar (11) of Indi taluk in Bijapur district, and siblings Spoorthi S. Patil (16) and Pranav Patil (15) of Hubli, were given State bravery awards. Young Sachin recounted his experience of saving a girl who had fallen into a well.

He said, “I could only hear her cry from the dark well. My immediate impulse was to jump in, and when I did, I landed next to her and found her struggling to keep afloat. I lifted her and made her cling to the wall but I could not lift her out of the well because I did not have the strength to do that.” Luckily his brother Akash, who was playing in the same field, bent a branch of a nearby tree and they both got out of the well with the help of the branch.

Spoorthi and Pranav not only saved a girl from a duo on a motorcycle who tried to snatch her chain, but they were also responsible for helping the police arrest the chain-snatchers. They were both going to tuition on the day their friend was attacked by two persons on a motorcycle, who tried to snatch her chain. Spoorthi and Pranav started pelting stones at the thieves and chased them away. Pranav followed the bike to some distance and managed to note down the number of the motorcycle, which led the police to the culprits. In the melee, one of the chain-snatchers beat up Pranav but he fought back, said Spoorthi. Omkar Malagowda saved his younger brother from drowning in a tank.

In his speech, Governor Rameshwar Thakur said Children’s Day marked the birth anniversary of the first Prime Minister of India, whose deep affection for children was legendary. He believed strongly that children are to be carefully nurtured as they are the symbols of a civil society.

Minister for Women and Child Development P.M. Narendraswamy said the State Government had been successful in bringing 90 per cent of the children below six years of age in the State under immunisation against six deadly diseases.

He said the State Government has set a target to bring child mortality rate to 30 per 1,000 children born, by 2010. On the occasion, two institutions were given State awards. They were Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement of H.D. Kote taluk in Mysore district and Child Rights Trust of Bangalore for their work in the field of child welfare.

Two individual awards were also given to director of the Tribal and Rural Development Society, B.S. Basavaraju, and Nazir Ahmed U. Sheik, honorary worker of Azad Youth Club.

Eight achievers from different districts were also honoured on the occasion. They were Shreya G. Shet of Shimoga (Academic); Shriya Dinakar of Bangalore (Academic); Kishan S.S. of Bangalore (Arts); Shreya S. Kumar of Bangalore (Arts); B.H. Tanvi Rao of Mangalore (Culture); and Aniketa R.Chandak of Belgaum, M. Satvik of Bangalore and Manisha Joycin D’Souza of Udupi (Sports).

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