Their talent on national canvas won 21 differently abled students of Jeevan Jyoti School a special felicitation on their Dhanbad campus on Monday.

The national contest, Avantika International Competition, was organised by New Delhi-based Avantika Group, an organisation of contemporary artists. Students from Classes II to XII were eligible to take part in the annual contest.

The four mentally challenged and 17 hearing impaired students of Jeevan Jyoti were felicitated by district welfare officer Kishore Kumar Sharma in the presence of secretary of school management committee Sanjay Pasari, principal Aparna Das, teachers and around 80 students.

Handing over the awards, which included two shields, seven medals and certificates, Sharma lauded the students and appreciated the school management for honing their special talents.

The felicitated students included Noor Neha Hembrom and Abhay Abhishek, who won the Srimati Saroj Gupta Shield and GP Gupta Shield; Rahul Gorai, Ankush Kumar Paswan and Mohammed Junaid who won gold medals; and Rakesh Kumar Mahto, Manish Hari and Ashish Kumar who bagged silver medals. The lone bronze was given away to Ayush Kumar Singh while a merit certificate was handed over to Ashuman Kumar Mishra.

Six honourable certificates were given to Salman Ansari, Ayush Chatterjee, Takshish Khatoon, Hemangi Aishwarya, Aman Prakash and Iqbal Ansari while three appreciation certificates went to Ridhi Kumari, Niranjan Kumar Saw and Binay Kumar Yadav.

The certificates for participation were given to Mohammed Jishan Hussain, Boby Kumari and Gautam Kumar.

"We had sent the entries in March to Avantika and the awards were announced in June last week. We held the event now as we managed to get dates from district welfare officer Kishore Kumar Sharma recently," said Das.