Two outstanding students, John Antony and Anandani Arora have become the first recipients of the AFII “Josephites of the Year” awards at an impressive ceremony held in the jam-packed St. Joseph’s Academy auditorium on November 25. Governor Margaret Alva presented the coveted awards instituted by afii Corporate Advisors, promoted by Dr. Mahesh PS Gandhi, an alumnus of SJA. The award carries a cheque of Rs. 50,000, and an assurance that AFII would always be there to help these students by way of further financial assistance or counseling as and when required.
Anandani Arora has become the first recipients of the AFII “Josephites of the Year”
Congratulating the award winners, Governor Alva expressed her happiness that an outstanding boy and an equally distinguished girl were the deserving winners. Addressing the packed hall of students, she asked them to work hard and emulate the achievements of their contemporaries and there was every possibility that they would be the winners of these coveted awards next year. The government also complimented AFII and its promoter Dr. Gandhi for these generous awards.
The function also marked the formal release of a poster on girl child designed and produced by Rajeev Sachhar’s St. Joseph’s Alumni Association. Mrs. Alva mentioned that it was only appropriate that such a Poster was being released on a day which was also international day on violence against women. Alva made a fervent appeal to all to oppose female feticide. She praised the high GDP rate and other favourable parameters achieved in Uttarakhand but lamented the growing tendency of female feticide. Giving her own example, governor said that she was the third daughter born and her mother even wept at her birth. “It is a different matter that later my mother would say that of all the five siblings, I gave her the most happiness”, Mrs. Alva added.
She appealed to the young people to wage and carry forward this battle for the girl child. She then narrated a story of twins, a boy and a girl, who were born under identical conditions but the boy always got better treatment than his twin sister.
The governor was generous in praise for St. Joseph’s Academy and said that the school had done remarkably well over the past 75 years in all curricular and extracurricular activities. She congratulated 3500 students of the Academy for the opportunity they got of studying in the best school. Here she underscored the importance of extracurricular activities that developed a student’s all round personality. She was herself an outstanding debater in the college though she did not do as well in academic.
Speaking about the awards, Dr. Gandhi announced that AFII was committed to continue to give these awards for the next 25 years. He also announced a donation of 50,000 girl child posters for widespread distribution in the interior areas of the state.
Profusely thanking the governor for her kind and generous praise, Principal, Bro. AJ George said that she was an epitome of simplicity and humility. “Each were that she spoke was from her heart and that is why her words mean so much to us”, Bro. George added. He also greatly appreciated the gesture of AFII and added that though the school had thousands of hundreds of former students, it was for the first time that Dr. Gandhi’s team had offered such generous awards.
Liked the article….Way to go Mrs. Alva…..Lets all stand up for the Girl Child…..