Swami Vivekananda’s 150^th Birth Anniversary Celebrations are held at Shri Ramakrishna Ashram from 26^th – 28^th January 2012. Youth from various states of the country celebrate this event in Rajkot with classical Indian music performances and various distinguished guests and speakers. Prof Gupta was invited to give a speech on creativity and innovation and appealed to the more than 3000 youth present at this event to overcome their inertia and come up with novel and innovative ideas to solve problems of our society. Many kids took part in a spontaneous idea competition and handed in papers written all over with ideas to Prof Gupta after his talk. We would like to share a few of those ideas with our readers:

Yashi Sharma from Vijyapeeth Bhopal wrote:

“My idea is to make an orphanage along with the old age home so that the children will become a well-behaved person and learn values of life. And we can encourage school students to help these orphans by their art or other things.”

Another child who only disclosed her email but not her name wants to innovate an automatic blackboard wiper as well as a mobile incinerator for dogs and cattle that are found dead on the roads.

And Rashindra says: “Nowadays, big trees are cut down from roadsides whenever new roads are built. Also the very old trees are just cut down. I think if we can relocate those trees before cutting them and plant them at a differen t place, we can save them.”

When kids can come up with such great ideas, why can we not put them into practice. Technologies and facilities are available and developing ever faster. Rashindra has a point. Why do we cut down trees that have grown for decades, sometimes for centuries, when we could relocate them and give them a home somewhere else. And why not bring together the youngest and the oldest people of our society who are often left alone and would be grateful for a friend to play with, read stories, talk, go for a walk or just listen. Yashi has promised to start a project bringing together orphans and the elderly in her own town. When children show such a spirit, our society’s future can only be hopeful. Let us support them as much as we can.

“Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the idea as near as possible to the Truth.” – Swami Vivekananda

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