Even as an Indian manned mission to the Moon remains a distant dream, a small town in Maharashtra has already entered the space age. Shreya Singh (12), a pre-teen resident of Nagothane — a tiny village 100 km from Mumbai, the country’s commercial capital — was awarded top honours in the International Space Settlement Contest 2012, organised by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), USA in April. A class VII pupil of the Jindal Mount Litera Zee School, Nagothane (JMLZ-N), Shreya got the first prize in the class VI-VII (individual) category besting 1,246 children worldwide for her 78-page paper titled ‘Revelation 19 — The Settlement of Mars’, a comprehensive research project detailing an alternate habitat for human settlement on the Red Planet with in-depth representation of life and its necessities.
After getting briefed about NASA’s International Space Settlement contest and its requirements by her maths teacher, Kalpesh Makawana, Shreya began work on the project named after chapter 19 of the Book of Revelations of the Old Testament, which prophecies the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to establish a new terrestrial kingdom.
“Conceptualising and writing the project report wouldn’t have been possible without the great support I received from my teachers and parents,’’ acknowledges Shreya, daughter of R.K. Singh, an HR professional with Maharashtra Seamless Ltd, a division of the D.P. Jindal Group and his wife Renu, a homemaker. As winner of the NASA award, Shreya was invited to the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) held in Washington DC between May 24-28 this year.
Shreya’s achievement has generated great excitement in village Nagothane (pop. 10,168) and in Raigad district which typically suffers backward and inadequate infrastructure. “I hope this is a stepping stone and Shreya continues to remain motivated in school and succeeds. Talent is not restricted to urban locales; it is everywhere and we are proving it,” says Urban D’Souza, principal, JMLZ-N (student strength 150).
Though the NASA award has won her plaudits and media headlines, this youngster has won several other awards at inter-school levels. Moreover she is a budding badminton player, and an avid reader of books and encyclopedias. An admirer of the great scientist Albert Einstein, Shreya reveres him as a role model.
Go girl!
Praveer Sinha (Mumbai)
