Dunman Asean Summit

It was a dream run for Vidya Niketan School, when they emerged victorious for the third time in a row at the Dunman Asean Summit, Singapore, held from June 1 to June 4, 2010.  Based on the lines of a Model United Nations, the Asean Summit discusses issues concerning the Asean countries.  The students are judged by a panel comprising members from the Singapore Government, UN officials and faculty from unversities.

       The seven member delegation from Vidya Niketan representing France were Anishaa Tavag - Environment development council, Bhargav Ravindra Dhakappa - Science and Technology, Gitanjali Miriam Mathew - Health & Development Council, Tanvi Mani - Social Development Council, Sidharth Kamat - Economic Development Council, Akshaan Nambiar - Transactional Crime and Security Council, Nikhitha Chandrashekar - Press.  They won the Best Delegation Award and in addition, each one was adjudged Best Delegate in their individual councils.  Nikhitha Chandrashekhar was adjudged the Best Journalist.  The Best Country Profile award added to make it a clean sweep for VNS this year.

Trip to China

Tarun Nambiar won the Global Citizen Scholarship Essay Contest, organised by Education First, an American organisation.  Ten students each from the US, India and China were selected on the basis of their essays and interviews conducted by a panel of judges spanning the three countries.  Tarun and the other scholars will proceed to Beijing and Shanghai on June 18 for 10 days to discuss the feasibility of a Global Education System. 

12th National Science Olympaid
The National Science Olympaid [NSO] was organised by the Science Olympaid Foundation on 19th November, 2009. It is a competition which tests the students basic knowledge and understanding in various fields of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. Their aim is to identify, nurture and promote scientific interest in students across the country. 
The School toppers were : 
Mohana Gopinath, Mehak Arora, Ksheeraja Raghavan, Deeksha Sinha, Tarun Nambiar
The following students also received certificates for their excellent performance:
A Divya Hebbar, Moksha Mangharam, Rajath Kaushik, Vikram Sirupurapu, Rival P, Yugesh Reddy, Aaryaman Shah and Sushanth Ikshwaku S.

Quiz Whiz
Abhishek Kumar and Shreyas Hariharan of Std. IX represented VNS at the Quiz on Germany conducted by Göethe Institute at DPS South, Bangalore and came away with the IInd Prize comprising a Rs.4000 gift cheque each. 

Spelling Bee
Spelling Bee competition was organised by ING Vyasa Bank. Agnibho Chatterjee got the first place and Ahnand V came in fourth from Std VII. From Std IV Ayushkiran secured III place and Ritwik S Mandyam stood second in the competition.

ASSET
Netra Char of Std III scored the highest percentile across India, in the Asset assessment which were held at the beginning of the academic sessions 2009 -2010

Music and Learning
Abhinav G Kashyap of Std II is a student at ‘Shadjam’ Music School learning Keyboard. As part of their annual day celebration, various activities were organised. Abhinav participated in all the activities and won first prize in Essay writing - the topic was ‘Environment and Degradation’ and his group won second place in the keyboard Competition.

Kajitsu!! Or Good Day!! 
Akash Ramachandran and Pushkar Bettadapur of Std X were the two lucky students of VNS chosen to participate in Jenesys 2009, an international program in Japan organized by AFS Japan and sponsored by the Government of Japan. Aimed at fostering cultural ties between students of various countries, the program saw participants from the South-East Asian nations of Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines, Thailand and India, as well as Australia and New Zealand, visiting the cities of Kyoto, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and many other tourist hotspots of Japan, besides benefiting from the 'life-altering experience' of a stay with a Japanese family for 5 days. Says Akash, “ Jenesys 2009 was a once-in-a-lifetime experience which we enjoyed thoroughly. We even got to make friends from different countries.” 

The Debating Matters India Competition - The Debating Matters India Competition is an offshoot of Debating Matters U.K. After having qualified in the first round which was an Online Elimination Test, Bhargav Dhakappa, Radhika Kulkarni, Shalini Rajan and Siddharth Kamat represented Vidya Niketan School in the Regional round held at Chennai on 30th November 2009 and 1st December 2009.
Several contentious issues such as the intrusion of media on the privacy of public personalities, curbs on artistic freedom, root cause of global terrorism, quota for women in politics and legalities in surrogacy and clinical trials were discussed.
Bhargav Dhakappa and Radhika Kulkarni were acknowledged for their individual performance. It was a great learning experience for the students on how to debate and also on various new perspectives.

I want to be an Editor
An important event attended by VNS students was the Metlife and Times of India contest “I Want To be an Editor”. Organised at Bishop Cotton's Girls School and conducted by Derek O'Brian's team, it was well-attended by 400 students from various schools. The winners who emerged after 3 rigorous rounds of quizzing got to edit The Times of India with Saurav Ganguly, Aamir Khan, Abdul Kalam, and a renowned personality from the business world. Though the participants from VNS did not win, they came away better equipped to handle public interaction, and greatly enriched by the whole learning experience.

Sparsh
Sparsh... Touching Hearts is a talent show that inspires people of all ages to show their talent in any field. Jas G Chandarana of Std V got the Runner Up prize in the entertainment Hungama category at Sparsh. He did the Hulla Hoop taught by Mr. Gunjan at VNS. The auditions attracted 300 participants in which 58 were chosen. Jas had to compete with 13 participants in this category. The auditions were partially telecast on Tv9 news. Final show was held in Chowdaiah Memorial Hall on 10th Jan 2010.

Elocution Competition
On 30 Nov 2009, our students participated in the Inter-School Elocution Competition for primary sections and Inter-School Quiz Competition for the Middle School students held in Ryan International School, Yelahanka.
Yashna Sardangani of Std II won the first place in the elocution competition and the team Ahnand V, Agnibho Chatterjee and Anshuman D P of Std VII won the third place in the Quiz.

Gita Recitation
Harshitha Ramu of std VI participated in a Geeta Competition held at Geeta Govinda Samskruta Sangha at Vyalikaval. There were more than thirty participants and Harshita secured the third place.

GK Quiz
Abhishek Kumar, Shreyas Hariharan, Nikhil S and Sandesha R of Std IX represented the school in the Columbia Asia Inter-school Quiz contest. The quiz was conducted by Dr. Srinivas, a cardiac surgeon at the referral hospital. Out of the 25 teams that participated from various schools across Bangalore, Sandesha and Abhishek Kumar stood IV while Shreyas and Nikhil stood VI in a hard fought round of quizzing. Both teams had won free heart check-ups, which hopefully, shall not be of much use.

International Informatics Science Olympaid
This olympaid is an inter-school event conducted annually intended to test basic computer knowledge and key aspects of Java language.
The winners in the Std XI category were: Saurabh Hindulkar won the gold medal,  Siddhart Kamat and Karneet Jain won the silver medal, Akshaya Saraff won the bronze medal. The winners in the Std XII category were: Lakshmi Ashok [Gold] and Rishi Dabrai [Silver].

Bhagawat Gita Competition
During the Gita Competition the students of Std VII were divided into groups and were asked to recite shlokas. The shlokas were taken from the 12th chapter as it is the most important chapter of the holy book. 
Bhagwat Gita purifies the body and the soul and brings peace of mind. Some of the groups formed emerged as the winners for reciting the shlokas.