4 Muslim students among 116 winners of Vivekanand quiz
Chief Minister Anandiben Patel felicitated these students and others at a function.
Rehana Balim, a class XI student from Junagadh, gets the first prize from Chief Minister Anandiben Patel in Vadodara. (Source: Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)
Four Muslim students were among 116 students from schools across the state who were felicitated for winning the Swami Vivekanand quiz competition held at state and district levels by the Ramakrishna Mission in Vadodara. Chief Minister Anandiben Patel felicitated these students and others at a function held here on Sunday.
Rehana Balim, a student of government girls’ high school in Junagadh was the first rank holder at the district-level, while Yasrabanu Master from HBK New High School in Ahmedabad, Zeelbanu Multani from JN Maheta High School in Amreli and Mariyamkhatun Aslam Khan from Gnan Ganga English Medium High School in Valsad were among second rankers at district-level. Speaking about her feat, Rehana, a class XI student, said she knew little about Vivekanand before her psychology teacher told school students about the quiz and distributed a booklet, “Swami Vivekanand Jeevan Sandesh.”
“I like his character. He is a man of strong resolve who taught on how to get ahead in life without fear,” she said. As many as 75,000 students from across 1,000 schools participated in the quiz competition. District education officers from Surat, Vadodara and Ahmedabad were also felicitated by the CM for “successfully” conducting the quiz.
“Swami Vivekanand was one who was full of positive thinking, something that I like most about him. I knew about him partly from textbooks but not as much as I knew about him after reading the booklet given to me by my school teacher,” Master, who was a state board topper with 99.67% marks, said.
Speaking at the event, Anandiben Patel talked about the drawing competition held across schools on January 30 on the theme of Gandhi on cleanliness in which 1.05 crore students participated. She said that exhibitions of best pictures at taluka-, district- and state-levels will be held to encourage students and top-rankers will be felicitated.
Patel also exhorted students to stay away from street food as she said they were source of diseases, and instead save money to build a mini library at home. “We’ll have exhibitions of the best pictures to let the world know what they can do. It is not necessary that a school needs an art teacher for students to paint well. Some of the pictures are simply beyond our imagination,” she told a gathering of students and parents.
Patel also asked teachers to share as much information as possible on diverse subjects with their students, ruing about lack of awareness among students about the state’s geography. “A group of students and their teachers drew blank when I asked them how many districts they crossed between Morbi and Pavagadh. They were out on trip and dropped by to meet me. Similarly, a group of students could not tell me about the height of the Narmada dam. Teachers should try to share these knowledge with their students,” she said.
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