ARCHIVED MEDIA RELEASE
PA/5/2001 14 February 2001
Delhi students show their knowledge in Australia quiz
To help mark Australia's Centenary of Federation - a hundred years of a united and democratic nation - the Australian High Commission today hosted a quiz contest for Delhi schools.
The theme of the quiz was general knowledge about Australia, ranging across subjects such as the nation's history, culture, geography, environment, cricket, and the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Ten leading schools participated in the quiz contest, each school represented by two children in the age group 12-15. The schools that participated were: Manav Sthali School, New Rajinder Nagar; The Mother's International School; Modern School, Vasant Vihar; DPS, R. K. Puram; Mount Carmel School, Anand Niketan; Mount St. Mary's; St Thomas' School, Mandir Marg; Cambridge School, Srinivaspuri; Bloom Public School, Vasant Kunj; and Amity International School, Saket.
Rahul Tom Joseph and Anirvan Chowdhury of Mount St. Mary's emerged as the winners. An exciting tie-breaker saw Bloom Public School, represented by Abhinav Khanna and Vikas Verma, winning the runner up position by correctly naming Australia's first Prime Minister. (Incidentally, the answer is Edmund Barton). Modern School, Vasant Vihar, represented by Shiv Mahajan and Anuj Nijhavan, were placed a very close third.
The Australian High Commissioner, Mr Rob Laurie, who presented the prizes, praised the level of knowledge about Australia displayed by the participants.
"I'm really impressed with how much the participants knew about Australia," he said.
"Some of those questions would have tested the High Commission’s Australian staff."
The winners were presented with prizes for themselves and for their schools. Prizes included special Swatch watches in the Australian cricket colours, Olympics memorabilia and a wide range of quality Australian books. The Indian distributor for Australian chocolate maker Paton's (M.B. International), also provided cash prizes to the libraries of the winning schools - and Australian macadamia nut chocolates for both the participants and the cheer squads from their schools.
For further information and for photographs, please contact:
Mr Rory Medcalf (First Secretary) or Shekhar Nambiar (Public Affairs Manager)
on 688 8223 Ext. 197 or Ext. 460.