Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 5 (IANS) President Pratibha Patil Tuesday felicitated Robin Singh, a class 9 student of a Kendriya Vidyalaya in Jammu and Kashmir who won a contest for designing a logo for the Roshni green initiative of the President’s Estate.

Robin Singh is a student of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Border Security Force School at Bandipore in the Kashmir Valley.

Vibhu Prakash, a class 4 student of Air Force School, Panchwati, Delhi Cantonment, was also felicitated. He had received the Encouragement Prize on May 31, the day Patil picked the winner of the competition from 3,276 entries submitted by schoolchildren across India.

The schoolchildren were “inspired to create a logo which encapsulates Roshni’s core aims of environmental management, empowerment of local communities and the creation of eco-friendly sustainable urban habitats in India”, the society and India@75, a grassroots initiative for realizing the dream of an inclusive, sustainable and developed India by 2022, said.

“This will usher in a new phase in raising public awareness of environmental issues,” the statement added in a statement.

India@75 and Roshni signed an MoU in September 2011. The logo competition was the first step under this.

The aim is “to universalize the concept of Roshni and to sensitize students towards sustainability, inclusion, environment preservation and conservation”.

The competition ran Feb 1-April 15 and reached out to schools in India “to ignite the imagination of school children around environmental sustainability issues at an early age.

“India@75 reached out to 10,480 schools; approximately 10.48 million students were made aware of the project and over 31.44 million people were sensitized in this large outreach campaign,” the statement said.

A total of 455 schools responded with 4,081 registrations and 3,276 final entries.

Roshni is a green innovative concept evolved at Patil’s behest and encompasses environment management and empowerment of local communities to create eco-friendly sustainable urban habitats through participation of stakeholders and convergence of partnership programmes.

Initiated in July 2008, the programme aims to make the President’s Estate a model in green, energy efficient and zero waste model township for all other habitats across India.

India@75 is a grassroots initiative for realizing the dream of an inclusive, sustainable and developed India by 2022, when India completes 75 years of independence.

The key focus areas of India@75 include education and skills, business and economy, technology and innovation, urbanization and environmental sustainability, agriculture, food security and health, arts, literature and sports, and moral leadership and governance and public administration.