Students from Bengal rewarded by NASA

Four students from Balurghat were recently felicitated and rewarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the USA for participating and ranking well in an international essay competition. The four students Ankan Chakraborty, Daisy Chowdhury, Sourajita Kar, and Vaidehi Mondal are currently studying in class XII in ‘The Green View English Academy’, a local private English medium school in Balurghat. Four of them had to go through an online screening test to qualify for the essay competition. More than 3,000 students from India participated in the online screening test for participation in this international essay competition conducted by NASA among whom only 70 students qualified for participation in the essay competition. The topic for the essay competition was 'Spaceship and Astronomy' and a private US institution conducted the competition. Out of those 70 students participating in the competition, only five ended up being selected for international rankings. Ankan Chakraborty got the highest rank among those five and has been presented an opportunity to study at the Florida Institute of Technology after his Class XII course is completed, he will also be rewarded with a scholarship of 10,000 dollars per year. Vaidehi Mondal, on the other hand, was rewarded the Kalpana Chawla Achiever Award. Daisy and Sourajita were presented the Space Explorer Award. After getting the reward, Ankan said, "Aeronautics and space have been my passion since childhood. My parents have inspired me a lot regarding the subject. There was no pressure on my shoulders from their end to the top in exams. They were very supportive and I also am grateful to my teachers who have contributed enormously to my success. It was my dream to get an opportunity in NASA after the Class XII board exams". The Principal of their school, The Green View English Academy, Kakali Chakraborty said, "We are all delighted. They were successful as they followed both discipline and intensive study".