Indian Stamps On Children’s Day 2007

The stamp designs are selected by holding an all India Stamp Design Competition. The theme for the Stamp Design Competition this year was “The Magic of the Night”. The competition elicited great response and the entries revealed beautifully the flight of a child’s fantasy. This year’s stamps are based on painting made by Kum. Swarali V.Bhakare, Class IV, Annasaheb Raje Bhosale, Primary School, Satara (Maharashtra) and B.Karthick, Class VIII, T.E.L.C, Middle School, Pudukottai (Tamil Nadu) which won the first prizes in Group I and Group II respectively.

Miniature Sheet Of Children’s Day 2007

Miniature sheet is based on the painting made by Master Pradhan Karnik, Class IX, Kendriya Vidyalaya, NAL Campus, Jeevan Bhimanagar, Bangalore (Karnataka) which won the first prize in Group III. The design of the First Day Cover is based on a painting by Raj Ballav Hazarika, Class XII, K.V.Narangi School, Assam APS, which won the second prize in Group III of the competition. The three Maxim Cards are based on paintings by Master Sankar Dinesh Kamath, Class III, Bhavan’s Varuna Vidyalaya, Thrikakkara, Ernakulam (Kerala), second prize winner in group I and Jyotirmay Biswas, Class VIII, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Kalyani, Nadia (West Bengal), second prize winner in Group II and Riti Sodhi, Class XII, Delhi Public School, Ranipur, Sector-3,BHEL, Ranipur,Hardwar, Uttarakhand, third prize winner in Group III.

First Day Cover Of Children’s Day 2007

2007 Indian Stamps : Satyagraha-The Stirrings

Satya is the Sanskrit word for “truth,” and Agraha for "enforce"(from the Sanskrit root grah, when prefixed with upasarga "a" becomes Agraha. Satya and Agraha form Savarnadhirga compound to yield Satyagraha), can be rendered as “effort/endeavor.” The term was popularized during the Indian Independence Movement, and is used in many Indian languages including Hindi.

Gandhi described it as follows: Its root meaning is holding onto truth, hence truth-force. I have also called it love-force or soul-force. In the application of satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself

Gandhi coined the term "Satyagraha" to describe his philosophy of nonviolent resistance. In developing satyagraha, Gandhi was influenced by the concept of ahimsa in the Hindu Upanishads and the tenets of Jainism, as well as earlier theorists of nonviolent resistance and nonresistance including Jesus (particularly the Sermon on the Mount), the Imam Hussein, Leo Tolstoy (particularly The Kingdom of God Is Within You), John Ruskin (particularly Unto This Last), and Henry David Thoreau (particularly Civil Disobedience).

Speaking of his initial satyagraha campaign in South Africa, he said:

None of us knew what name to give to our movement. I then used the term “passive resistance” in describing it. I did not quite understand the implications of “passive resistance” as I called it. I only knew that some new principle had come into being. As the struggle advanced, the phrase “passive resistance” gave rise to confusion and it appeared shameful to permit this great struggle to be known only by an English name. Again, that foreign phrase could hardly pass as current coin among the community. A small prize was therefore announced in Indian Opinion to be awarded to the reader who invented the best designation for our struggle. We thus received a number of suggestions. The meaning of the struggle had been then fully discussed in Indian Opinion and the competitors for the prize had fairly sufficient material to serve as a basis for their exploration. Shri Maganlal Gandhi was one of the competitors and he suggested the word sadagraha, meaning “firmness in a good cause.” I liked the word, but it did not fully represent the whole idea I wished it to connote. I therefore corrected it to “satyagraha”. Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase “passive resistance”, in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word “satyagraha” itself or some other equivalent English phrase.

A Set Of 4 setenant stamps are released to celebrate the "Centenary of Satyagraha".The Picture in the stamps depict Gandhi in South Africa spearheading the satyagraha movement

Bridges Of India On Indian Stamps

Howrah Bridge, is a bridge that spans over the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India. It was originally named the New Howrah Bridge because it links the city of Howrah to its twin city Kolkata (Calcutta). But on 14th June 1965 it was renamed to Rabindra Setu (named after Rabindranath Tagore a great poet and the first Indian Nobel laureate). However, still it is popularly known as the Howrah Bridge.

The bridge is one of the three on the Hooghly River and is a famous symbol of Kolkata and West Bengal. This sentimental landmark and identity of Kolkata and West Bengal, apart from bearing stormy weather of the Bay of Bengal region, it successfully bears the weight of a daily traffic of approx 150,000 vehicles and 4,000,000 pedestrians.

Mahatma Gandhi Setu is a bridge over the river Ganges connecting Patna in the south to Hajipur in north in Bihar, India. It was inaugurated in May 1982 by Indian Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi.Its length is 5,450 meters and it is one of the longest single river bridge in the world. The approach to the bridge from the south is a two km long flyover. There are 40 piers to this bridge.

The Pamban Bridge on the Palk Strait connects Pamban island to mainland India. It refers to both the road bridge and the cantilever railway bridge, though primarily it means the latter. It is the longest sea bridge in India at a length of about 2.3 km.

From the elevated two-lane road bridge, adjoining islands and the parallel rail bridge below can be viewed.The railway bridge is 6,776 ft (2,065 m)[1] and was opened for traffic in 1914. The railroad bridge contains a still-functioning vertical lift section that can be raised to let ships pass under the bridge.The railway bridge historically carried meter-gauge trains on it, but Indian Railways upgraded the bridge to carry broad-gauge trains in a project that finished Aug. 12, 2007.

Vidyasagar Setu (commonly known as the Second Howrah Bridge or Second Hooghly Bridge) is a bridge over the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India. It links the city of Howrah to its twin city of Kolkata. The bridge is a toll bridge for vehicles.The bridge is named for the great son of Bengal Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar

The bridge also has sister bridges over the river at different points, namely the Howrah Bridge (Rabindra Setu) and the Vivekananda Setu.It is a cable-stayed bridge, with a main span of a little over 457 metres, and a deck 35 metres wide. Construction started in 1978 and the bridge was finally inaguarated in October, 1992. The commissioning agency was the Hooghly River Bridge Commission (HRBC) and the contractors for the construction was the consortium of Braithwaite, Burn and Jessop also called BBJ.