Buzz: Campus News

Copenhagen 2009
The United Nation's Framework for Climate Change Conference 2009 was supposedly the biggest environmental summit in a decade. The reason of this was the rewriting of the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2013. Being in the official delegation of one of the four major countries namely India, China, South Africa and Brazil, was an amazing experience.
WWF organized a national-level essay writing competition, Prithvi Ratna, on the topic Youth on Climate Change, on the demands of the Environment & Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh. It was held in the school first where the best four entries from the 16-18 year age group in both English and Hindi were chosen and sent to the district office. After various levels of competitions I was declared the national winner for Hindi. The award consisted of a lifetime ambassadorship for WWF, a place as an official member of the Indian delegation to Copenhagen and a national award, Prithvi Ratna.
At Copenhagen, the first thing that was erased from our minds was that we were kids. We were expected to behave like a government body, our every action and word accounted for on behalf of the nation, which was a huge responsibility. We could attend all the open door or closed door official meetings. We met people from around 192 nations, the biggest NGO associates, world leaders and members of the press. What thrilled us was the fact that people of almost twice or thrice our age, looked at our batches and gave us way. We were the youngest official delegates from around the globe.
The conference taught us that people and countries are genuinely serious about the protection of our environment. Our existence. It's very easy to say that governments should do this or this country should do that, but when 192 countries sit down to make a draft and even a single country objects on a silly appearing comma or full stop, the whole draft is remade. It's quite a task. When countries speak on their behalf, keeping their priorities, every country appears to be right because circumstances everywhere are different.
We gathered that the awareness level in India is very high. Everybody knows the data, we have studied it in 7th and 8th, but need to implement it in our daily lives. I believe that the youth is not just the future, but the present. And to give to our children what we received of this earth from our elders, we have to fight. And every individual step will prove to be of a greater help to nature, for as they say, take small steps and big things will automatically fall into place.
Aadya Dube, Std XII, Carmel Convent Sr Sec School, BHEL, Bhopal

ICFPA 2009
Shri Kapil Sibal, Human Resource Minister along with Bollywood director Madhur Bhandarkar and ace tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi raised the curtain on the 10th International Children's Festival of Performing Arts, ICFPA 2009 at New Delhi from December 16-19, 2009.
The festival was hosted by Ryan Foundation, in association with National Bal Bhavan and Indian Council for Cultural Relations. Over 5,000 children from countries like Bangladesh, Germany, Iran, Israel, India, Latvia, Nigeria, Nepal, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Zambia, Finland, Indonesia, Italy, Switzerland, Thailand participated. The theme for the festival was 'I Can, I Will'.
Dr Augustine F. Pinto, Chairman of Ryan Foundation and Managing Director Grace Pinto with their farsighted vision are relentlessly working to create unparalleled standards of education across the globe. In its 10th successful year now, the main objective of this festival is to provide more holistic dimensions to children's thoughts and actions by unleashing their creativity and making them interact with their counterparts residing worldwide. During the festival children were given an opportunity to showcase their talents and to participate in workshops, seminars and performances, besides learning about cultures from different parts of the world.

Odissi dancers from Indore win 3rd place
Sanskar Bharti Natya Kendra, an organization in Agra, organized the National Drama & Folk Dance Festival 2009 (Akhil Bharti Drama Competition). The selection to this event is done by the organizers themselves based on one's performance. We, the Odissi dancers of Chhandak (Indore) bagged third position in group dance at the event among all the eight classical dance forms, defeating even the Orissa team!
Sushumna Billore, Indore