Bengaluru: 7-year-old girl gets Global Peace Photo Award for picture of her mother, grandmother

Bengaluru: A seven-year-old Indian girl from Bengaluru has been awarded the Peace Image of the Year in the children category in the prestigious Global Peace Photo Award.

The photo is themed as the “lap of peace” and shows her mother in the lap of her grandmother.

Aadhyaa Aravind Shankar, class 2 student of Vidyaniketan in Hebbal is the only Indian to have won this honor.

She received the award at the Austrian Parliament. Aadhyaa also received a diploma, a medal and a cheque of 1,000 euros.

On receiving the award, Aadhyaa said, ” I am deeply honored to stand here, in front of you as the winner of the Children’s Peace Image of the Year 2021. when I was told that the theme for this competition was ‘Peace’, the first thought that came to my mind was that we humans can continue to live in peace only when Mother Nature is protected and nurtured. A few days later, I saw my mother sleeping peacefully in her mother’s lap. That is when the idea of connecting a mother’s lap to the lap of nature occurred to me. Nature is the universal mother for all of us, and thus, this photograph was born.”

Eric Falt, the Director of UNESCO New Delhi, who had presided the Jury of this year’s prize, said, “Young Aadhyaa was clearly the star of the show. She received the prize with great aplomb, and the audience loved it! I warmly congratulate her”.

The Global Peace Photo Award recognizes and promotes photographers from all over the world whose pictures capture human efforts towards a peaceful world. The award is given in collaboration with Austrian Parliament and UNESCO.