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| The winners with their trophies at the elocution contest. Picture by Anindya Shankar Ray |
The need to adopt more pro-active measures to ban katatel and check the growing rate of farmer suicides were some of the issues that engaged young minds at the finals of the Andrew Yule elocution contest, held in association with TTIS (The Telegraph in Schools).
The theme for the contest, held at GD Birla Sabhagar on January 21, was “Global Warming — A Threat To Ecological Balance”. Each student had to speak for three minutes. Eighteen students from classes VI to X made it to the finals, conducted in three categories: English, Bengali and Hindi.
The finalists were selected through a preliminary screening held on January 14, 15 and 16 at Rotary Sadan. Said chief guest Sailen Sarkar, the state environment minister: “We have recorded very high temperatures in the last decade. The increased use of fossil fuels and rapid urbanisation are to be blamed.”
While Romit Roy of Don Bosco, Park Circus, advocated the removal of illiteracy to increase awareness of the environment, Aheli Guha Roy of Sister Nivedita Girls’ School wanted extensive use of compressed natural gas (CNG) to reduce air pollution.
Class VII student Sreemoyee Bandopadhyay of South Point High School was the winner in the English category. She summed up the spirit of the day, saying: “We have inherited a beautiful world. We should try to keep it that way.”
Speaking on the environment has its rewards. Sreemoyee Chakraborty from BD Memorial Institute, Narendrapur, came first in the Bengali category and went home with a Rs 10,000 gift voucher. So did winners from the English and Hindi category.
“I am wondering what to buy for Rs 10,000,” said Chakraborty. The second and third position winners won Rs 5,000 vouchers, while other finalists got Rs 1,000.
Shagnik Paul of St Xavier’s, Durgapur, came second in English. In Hindi, it was Somya Singh from the Centre for Special Education, Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy, and Neha Jain, from Birla High School. The second prize in Bengali went to Prama Dey of Holy Child Institute.
