Health is Wealth, a 250-word essay with a ringing endorsement of prime minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Movement), has won Sangli (Maharashtra)-based teenager Ashish Jadhav #1 rank in version 9.0 of the Tata Build India (TBI) Essay Competition 2014-15 (Marathi language category). Ashish was among 11 national language (including English) winners to be awarded a certificate, TBI trophy and laptop computer at a celebratory event in New Delhi on December 8, 2016, followed by a tour of Rashtrapati Bhavan and meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee. The TBI School Essay Competition is a two-phase contest organised annually by the well-known Mumbai-based Tata Group to motivate India’s youth to come up with nation-building initiatives. The 2014-15 ‘Clean India’ contest attracted entries from 3 million students across 180 cities countrywide. The elder child of Shashikant Jadhav, a textile factory employee, and Ashwini, a homemaker, Ashish, a class XII science student of Shantiniketan Vidyalaya Junior College in Sangli’s Madhavnagar gram panchayat, is thrilled by the award. “Though I have always loved writing and participated in essay competitions before, I hadn’t taken part in a national contest. I still find it difficult to accept that my essay was among the best in the country. Moreover, my first visit to the national capital and Rashtrapati Bhavan was a dream come true,” says Ashish, who is actively involved in the clean India movement of his local gram panchayat. In his essay, the 17-year-old highlighted the linkage between public hygiene and personal health citing the large number of deaths caused by chikungunya and dengue. “There is urgent need to address and resolve public hygiene issues. If we want to compete against the rest of the world, we need to be free of disease,” he says. With his class XII board examinations less than a month away, Ashish is focusing on academics, making maximum benefit of his newly acquired laptop. “After Plus Two, my dream is to study software engineering. Simultaneously, I plan to campaign for a litter tax as I believe that is the only way to realise a clean, green India,” says this go-getter who is determined to go places. Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)
