President gives awards to 20 children for exceptional achievement

New Delhi: With a medal, a commemoration letter and a pat of encouragement on their shoulders, President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday handed the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement to 20 talented and brave children on the occasion of Children's Day.

Among the awardees at the function which was held in the historic Darbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan were a five-year-old magician and a 12-year-old special child who paints with his feet along with a 15-year-old innovator and a nine-year-old mountaineer.

Mukherjee could not stop his smile when the youngest among the recipients -- five-year-old Satvik Nayak C, dressed in a blue jacket, approached to receive the award. Even the audience got up for a look of the young magician, who performs his shows to promote social causes, as he received the award for "excellence in the field of Culture and Social Service".

In a brief interaction, Nayak said he wants to promote sanitation through his shows. When, on the sidelines of the event, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi asked him to perform a magic trick, Nayak did a small presentation on the Prime Minister's cleanliness drive. A 14-year-old Kannada actor, Anil Kumar V, who acted in the prize-winning film 'Nanna Gopal' in Kannada, was also among the recipients of the prestigious annual award.

Another awardee, Aryan Balaji, is all of nine years old and has scaled Mount Kilimanjaro -- the highest peak in Africa -- besides becoming, in 2012, the youngest to reach the Mount Everest Base camp at an elevation of 5,364-m. He has not limited himself only to adventure but has also run a polio eradication campaign in schools in Nepal and acted in movies.

He received the award for excellence in Sports, Adventure and Acting. For turning his weakness into strength and painting using his feet, 12-year-old L Anjiniah from Bengaluru, a 12-year-old special child whose upper limbs are under developed, was among the awardees this year. "His paintings are as as good as done by professional artists. He is very popular in Bengaluru because of his paintings," read Anjiniah's citation.