Food, rides, stories! Kids have their day

The city celebrated the Children’s Day with great enthusiasm on Monday. The Makkala Habba, the two-day event at Cubbon Park, continued on Monday as well.

Organised by the Department of Women and Child Development and Department of Kannada and Culture, the children’s day special programme began on Sunday. Set around the rural theme to introduce the city’s children to our tradition and culture, the second edition of the festival saw hundreds of people flocking to Cubbon Park.

The children and their parents enjoyed bullock cart rides, South Indian cuisine and sculptures depicting life in a village complete with the potter’s wheel and village women in huts. Another attraction was the floral arrangement made in the form of the Eiffel Tower.

Kannada and Culture Minister Umashree presented the state children’s awards at Bal Bhawan. A collection of short stories written by children in government run homes in the state, Sankalpa, was also released. She said, “Art gives you immense strength. I am an artist myself and I am telling you from my personal experience.”

Sakshi Kolekar, a 16-year-old student from Divine Higher Secondary School, Belagavi, bagged the award in the art category, Ameya in the scholastic category and Seema Shettar in Innovation.

BBMP introduces traditional games
For children who are addicted to computers, video games and TV, the BBMP with an intention to bring them back to playground and revive traditional games organised a programme to promote traditional games like lagori, kunte bille, billu-bana, goli and other games.

Inaugurating the programme at the Kempegowda playground at the Shankara Math ward, Mayor G. Padmavathi said, “Every ward has been allotted '1 lakh to introduce traditional games to children.”

KSRTC employees’ kids celebrate the day
KSRTC organised Sarige Nadige – Makkaledege to celebrate the day with the children of KRSTC employees and students from Hombegowda Government School at the KSRTC Central office. The corporation took the opportunity to educate children about the history of transport. The 1947 make Banashankari Bus was kept open for the children. Rajender Kumar Kataria, KSRTC MD, and B.N.S. Reddy, Director, Security and Vigilance, were present.

Kids dress up as favourite characters
A fancy dress competition was organised by Shanthinikethana School, Girinagar, where children came dressed as their favourite cartoon characters. While most children came dressed as Doremon and Chhota Bheem, Spider-Man, Batman, Shaun the Sheep and Mickey Mouse were also spotted.

Litfest
A litfest, KathaVana, was held to promote and encourage interest in reading among schoolchildren. The festival, organised by the Azim Premji University, was aimed at introducing them to literature without limiting them to any language. Storytellers, publishers, teachers, academics and educators took part.  The festival which was held at the Government Boys School, Attibele saw the participation of 1,000 children.