29th January, Mumbai: Desh Apnayen Sahayog Foundation and Praja Foundation hosted ‘Prajatantra’, an inter-school competition, to celebrate India’s 72nd Republic Day.
Children's Academy, Thakur Complex, Mumbai was announced the winner at the Grand Finale that was organised online for getting the highest score of 44. The students from the winning team were Tanvi Kamat, Rahil Gandhi, Gouri Thakur, Palaash Jadav, Riya Godbole, Prapti Jani, Adwik Gore and Saili Narvekar led by teacher Jahnavi Sanghavi.
Nalanda Public School, Mulund, Mumbai, with a score of 43, bagged the first runner-up position. The team members were Atharva Karnik, Aakash Borji, Ameya Parab, Soham Dengra, Divya Gopalani, Advay Bapat, Soham Thorat and Charvi Yadhav led by teacher Neha Oza.
Delhi Private School, Dubai bagged the second runner-up position with a score of 38. The team members were Aliya Arora, Tanisha Kanagarajeu, Diva Rajpurohit, Sana Fathima, Aasha Latha Sakhamuri, Mikel Bonny, Anubhav Misra and Haard Ketankumar Bhut led by teacher Ashker M.
27 schools from across India took part in the Zonal Rounds of the competition. School teams compared India with two other countries on certain parameters and also shared their perspectives and ideas on seven questions that were shared with them. The teams were evaluated on parameters such as the quality of their research, analysis and ideas, their answer to the Chief Guest’s question, and adherence to the time limit.
Mr. Jagdeep Chhokar, Co-Founder and Trustee of Association for Democratic Reforms and Director In-Charge of IIM Ahmedabad, was the Chief Guest. He said, “I was very happy that every single group that took part in the contest highlighted the importance of the contribution of citizens in shaping democracy. We need to internalise the fact that we are responsible for everything that we see wrong in the country. We must decide what it is that we can do to improve the lot of our country and our neighbourhood. We must then strive to persuade at least a few people around us to take the concept of citizenship seriously, to become more alive, active and responsible citizens.”
Mr. Vallabh Bhanshali, Founder of Desh Apnayen and ENAM Securities said, “All our programmes aim to create ACTIZENS – alert, informed and active citizens. We are delighted to see young students putting in the effort to learn more about democracy and reflect on how they can strengthen it as citizens.”
The event was streamed live on YouTube at https://youtu.be/LRiqDXxtMxE
About Desh Apnayen Sahayog Foundation
Desh Apnayen was founded by Mr. Vallabh Bhanshali, Co-founder and Chairman of ENAM Securities, and his associates in 2015. Its vision is to build an accountable citizenry and society around three important themes: citizenship education, volunteerism and neighbourhood engagement.
Schools that would like to start the Desh Apnayen ACTIZENS’ Club, take part in monthly activities, or access the ACTIZEN Education content can write to info@deshapnayen.org or 8898890202. The programmes are offered at no cost to the schools.
About Praja Foundation
Praja is a non-partisan organisation working towards enabling accountable governance since 1997. It believes that urban governance in India has failed to deliver good governance to the citizens of urban India, and that this is due to the governance structure of urban India. It also believes that the lack of true grassroot democracy where local elected representatives and local governments are not sufficiently empowered and not responsive to the citizens is the primary cause for lack of effective governance in cities.
Praja undertakes data driven research for identifying capacities in urban governance, map inefficiencies in their work processes and identify best practices. It then provides this information to urban governance stakeholders including elected representatives, administration, citizens, media and academia; and works with leadership amongst its stakeholders to identify and address inefficiencies in building their capacities to improve work processes in urban governance.
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