Space and beyond

(From top) Rabi Narayan Nanda felicitates a meritorious student of DPS-Kalinga during the scholars’ day event, Sai International School students pose with their trophies, Usha Padhee accepts an award from President Pranab Mukherjee. Telegraph pictures

The sixth Young Astronomer Talent Search (YATS), an annual programme to scout for 20 budding astronomers in the state, came to a close on December 13. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik awarded the top 20 in a grand function at Pathani Samanta Planetarium, which had collaborated with Tata Steel to organise the talent hunt.

Science and technology minister Ramesh Majhi, planetarium director William Bilung, deputy director Subhendu Pattnaik and Tata senior officials, Anand Sen and Sushanta Mishra, also felicitated the students.

YATS was open to students of Classes VIII to X in all schools of the state. In the first stage, the participating students were required to prepare a write-up on ‘India and Space Research’. From the zonal rounds, 129 students were selected for the finals held at the planetarium.

Artists too many

Odisha bagged the first prize for maximum number of teachers winning a painting competition organised by the Union ministry of new and renewable energy to mark the National Energy Conservation Day on December 14.

As many as 35,625 teachers from 615 government, non-government and aided schools across the state had taken part in the competition. Of them, 50 were selected for prizes. President Pranab Mukherjee gave away the award to secretary of school and mass education department Usha Padhee at a function in New Delhi.

Sports talents

Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1, Bhubaneswar, organised its annual sports day on its campus on December 19. Around 300 students took part in a host of activities, including 100 types of track and field events. D.V. Swamy, director of sports and youth services, inaugurated the event and advised students to participate actively in sports.

Bright minds

Two teams from Sai International School, Bhubaneswar, won the second and fifth positions in the IIMT-Oxford Brookes University Innovation Challenge 2012 in Delhi on December 14. It was the only school to win two slots in the top five. The national final was held among 17 teams chosen from across 1,000 schools in the country.

The project ‘Saksham’ under the Corporate Social Responsibility category won the second position. Three Class XI students — Vikram Aditya Sahoo, Vishal Aditya Sahoo and Simple Mohanty — had engineered the project and won a laptop each along with a trophy. Their mentor Rinku Sarangi got a cash prize of Rs 5,000.

The other team that included Ankit Sahoo, Asish Mishra and Krishnakant Behera bagged the fifth position for their project ‘Deploying technology for healthcare - Mobicline’ and received a cash award of Rs 10,000. Their mentor teacher, Debjani Chakrabarty, received Rs 5,000.

Scholars’ day

Delhi Public School - Kalinga celebrated the scholar badge ceremony on its campus on December 14 to felicitate students who worked their way to the top echelons of recognition and honour.

Over 100 students received trophies, scholar badges and gowns and certificates from minister of school and mass education Rabi Narayan Nanda. Special prizes were heaped on DPS-ites Anshuman Swain, Yamini Modi, Md. Shah Faisal, Sakshi Bhalla, Meghna Khurania and Ashis Polai for their brilliant results in the Class XII board exams.