Children's Day is recognized on various days in many places around the world, to honor children globally. Universal Children's Day takes place annually on November 20. In India, Children's Day is celebrated on 14 November, the birthday of the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru born in 1889.
Jawaharlal Nehru, who was fondly called Chacha Nehru (Uncle Nehru) by the kids, emphasized the importance of giving love and affection to children, whom he saw as the bright future of India. This day is known as Baal Divas in Hindi.
Many functions are organized in schools, offices and other organizations. All over the country, various cultural and social institutions conduct competitions for children. Children's Day is seen as a day for the kids to engage in fun. Children take part in many sports organized for them.
India Post also celebrates Children’s Day by releasing special postage stamp every year on 14th November. Stamps issued on this occasion are the only stamps which are not designed by professional stamp designers of India Post.
India Post or Bhartiya Dak Vibhag as it is known as in Hindi holds drawing competition on all India level and the selected best entries gets its place as design of the commemorative postage stamp, first day cover and various other such items which are issued on 14th of November by the name of that particular school student.
It was in the year 1957 when India Post issued a set of three stamps for the first time on 14th November. First of the stamp was depicting a boy eating a Banana. The price of the stamp was 8 Paisa. The stamp was created from a candid photograph of a 8 year boy Shekhar Borker. The photograph was selected from 10000 entries. Shekhar became famous as 'Banana Boy' after the stamp was issued. Until 1966, the Children's Day stamps were created using a photograph. in 1971, instead of using a photograph, India Post started to use drawings and paintings by children, selected from all over India.
(Stamps issued in 1957 in single color)
(Coloured stamp issued in 1973)
From 1973 India Post started to issue stamps in Multicolor and also the trend of using the children's painting was started.
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| 2006 |
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| 2013 |
Design a Stamp Competition
India Post Organizes 'Design a Stamp Competition' for School children. The competition is organized on national level and hundreds of thousands of school children from every corner of India take part in it. A theme is given and the competitors and they have to design it in ink, water color or oil paint. Winning design is selected to depict on Children's Day stamp. The competition is open for the student of Standard IV to Standard XII, and is divided in 3 groups. The winning entries from each group gets its place on Children’s day stamp, First Day Cover, Miniature sheet and various such other collectables by released by India Post every year on 14th November.
Many stamp collectors like to specialize themselves in a specific theme. Gandhi stamps are one of the most popular themes in the collectors of stamps. Now Children's day stamps also have become a popular theme amongst the collectors. It is notable thing that India post has issued a large number of stamps on both the themes.
Stamps on this theme are displayed in most of the philatelic exhibitions in India.I started collecting stamps in my school days and still continuing the same.
Deepak Narendra Ji Modi, JALNA.
Modi.philatelist@gmail.com
References: Articles in various news papers, internet and from personal collection.
Note: All the stamps released from 1957 to 2013 has not been included in this article due to space restriction.
