A recent a news about Spelling Bee contest won by Snigdha Nandipati by defeating eight other finalists is the highlight of many parent discussion around the town. She is the fifth consecutive Indian-American winner of the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee competition in the U.S.

She is 14years studying her eight grade tied for 27th place in the last year contest. She studied 10-12 hours on weekends and 6 hours on weekdays to prepared to reach this accomplishment. She received an amount of $30,000 in cash, a trophy, a $2,500 savings bond and a scholarship of $5,000. She and past winners are always an inspiration to the young indian kids to do more instead of just watching TV and playing video games. Click here to check out more…

In past few years, Indian kids emerging as U.S. Champions in various fields. Like Snigdha, there are other US youngsters from India decent who made to the news by winning various awards. Here are few,

Nitin Reddy Tumma – 2012 Nobel Prize for Juniors/Intel Science Talent Search Winner for his research on cancer pathogenesis.

Shree Bose – Winner of Google Global Science fair 2011 – Discovered a process to improve the treatment of ovarian cancer patients.

Ramya Rangan – Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement 2011 honoring her as a top achiever in America in advanced placement math and science.

Bradly Ivan D’Souza – Presidents Volunteer Service Award for 2011 for finishing more than 1100 hours of community serviced.

You can read more stories about these young chaps at the recent article posted at siliconindia.com and show to your kids to inspire them on their journey to achieve their dream by never giving up on them.

Source courtesy: siliconindia.com

Thanks to my friend and neighbor Suresh who gave me the immense pleasure to read one among the best speeches I ever read by forwarding the script. It was the speech by Mr. Nipun Mehta. It is the founder of Service Space, a non-profit organization initially called as Charity focus. I did more research about him after the speech. I was amazed to find out that his philosophy and his teams mantra was give without no strings attached which is the actual meaning of giving lost in this internet era.

I really enjoyed reading every para of the speech and able to take away plenty of life lessons which I want to follow and share with others. I loved the phrase where he said, don’t just go through life — grow through life.
It wouldn’t be fair if I kept this wonderful speech to myself and decided to share with my friends and visitors of my website. Don’t just rush through the pages, just take some time out of your busy schedule and read it with quite background. You can feel it inside your inner soul.

Below is the script of the speech he gave at the IVY League Graduation ceremony. Enjoy it.
[download id=”26″]
I also found a TED talk which he presented about Give, Receive and Dance. An interesting speech as well.

Let me share an interesting story which I came across from email forward by my cousin.

—Start—
A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men on it were able to swim to a small, desert like island. The two survivors, not knowing what else to do, agree that they had no other recourse but to pray to God. However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful, they agreed to divide the territory between them and stay on
opposite sides of the island.

The first thing they prayed for was food. The next morning, the first man saw a fruit-bearing tree on his side of the land and he was able to eat it’s fruit. The other man’s parcel of land remained barren!

After a week, the first man was lonely and he decided to pray for a wife. The next day, there was a woman who swam to his side of the land. On the other side of the island, again there was nothing!

Soon the first man prayed for a house, clothes, more food. The next day, like magic, all of these were given to him. However, the second man still had nothing!

Finally, the first man prayed for a ship, so that he and his wife could leave the island. In the morning, he found a ship docked at his side of the island. The first man boarded the ship with his wife and decided to leave the second man on the island. He considered the other man unworthy to receive God’s blessings, since none of his prayers had been answered.

As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from heaven booming, “Why are you leaving your companion on the island?”
“My blessings are mine alone, since I was the one who prayed for them,” the first man answered. “His prayers were all un answered and so he does not deserve anything.”

“You are mistaken!” the voice rebuked him. “He had only one prayer, which I answered. If not for that, you would not have received any of my blessings.”

“Tell me, O God,” the first man asked the voice, “What did he pray for that I should owe him anything?”

“He prayed that all your prayers be answered.”

For all we know, our blessings are not the fruits of our prayers alone, but those of another praying for us.

This is too good not to share…

My prayer for you today is that all your prayers are answered. Be blessed.

“What you do for others is more important than what you do for yourself”

— End —