Ever since its
advent on the Indian soil in the middle of 19th Century, the Indian
Railways have contributed to each aspect of the Nation’s life. While it has facilitated the
industrialization, carriage of foodgrains and
passengers on one hand, it has played an equally significant role in the
development of human resources. Indian
Railways has been the catalyst to many a successful sporting stories and it is
not surprising, therefore, that it is today the lead partner of the
Commonwealth Games 2010 and now running a special exhibition train,
“Commonwealth Express” to spread awareness about sports and IT especially among
the youth and among the masses in general throughout the country.
Railways’ gift to
the nation “Commonwealth Express” Exhibition Train
This special exhibition
train consists of 11 coaches out of which 5 coaches have been allocated to
Railway Sports Promotion Board to showcase the history of Commonwealth Games (CWG), details of venues of the events to be held
in October 2010, to spread the general awareness of different sports and to
give wide publicity to the sports icons of India who have brought laurels to
the country with their stupendous feats.
Besides one coach is exclusively dedicated to the
Railway Sports Promotion Board to showcase their history, activities as well as
achievements at national and international level.
Railway
Minister, Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of Delhi, Smt. Sheila Dikshit and others in one of the coaches of “Commonwealth
Express” on the occasion of its inauguration
In the five sports
coaches, coach-1 depicts the history of Commonwealth Games right from its
primitive edition to the one what it has attained on date. Coach-2 has been designed so as to give a
general acquaintance with the venue of the events of CWG-2010.
It also reflects the massive change over of Delhi in order to host this world class event with
the proper display of dummy models of stadiums and infrastructural elevation of
the city. Coach-3 has been designed in
such a manner so as to give a proper know about of various sports disciplines
which have been included in this Commonwealth Games 2010. The notion is to make our masses aware
specially those who reside into the remote and distant parts of the peninsula
and are thus unaware of the different versions of games, there format and
sports gear etc. Besides it has also
been mentioned as to which competition will be staged at what venue along with
dates etc. Coach-4 is dedicated to the
outstanding sportspersons of India.
Suitable photographs of such icons have been displayed in this coach so
as to make the masses aware of these heroes of the past as well as
present. Coach-5 exhibits in detail the
contribution of Railways in development of sports and highlights star Railway
sportspersons and displays list of Railway sportspersons who have won
prestigious Awards – Arjuna, Rajiv
Gandhi, Khel Ratna, Dronacharya, Padmashree, Dhyanchand. It also has an auditorium where relevant
films will be screened along with display of trophies bagged by the Indian
Railways.
One
of the sports coaches of depicting photographs of outstanding sport persons of India
The contribution of the Railways in the field
of sports can be assessed by the fact that there are 129 Arjuna
Awardees, 16 Padma Shri Awardees, 5 Dhyanchand Awardees, 4 Dronacharya Awardees and above all, the most prestigious of
individual awards in sports i.e. 3 Rajeev Gandhi Khel
Ratna Puraskar awardees, in
its family. In the last Commonwealth
Games, at Melbourne in 2006, Indian Railway Sportspersons won two
Gold and six Silver medals. Of the
Indian Women Hockey Team 14 out of 16 members were from Indian Railways itself,
which won the Silver Medal.
One
of the sports coaches of “Commonwealth Express” displays the achievements of
Railways in the field of sports
The tradition of encouragement to sports in
Indian Railways dates back to 1928 when the Indian Railways Athletics
Association was formed with Hockey, Athletics and Tennis as the sports
patronized. The name was changed
subsequently to the “Railway Sports Control Board” (RSCB) in 1956 and to
Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) in 1998 in order to bring the
nomenclature in tune with the functions of the Board. In the last eight years the growth of this
body has been phenomenal. RSPB has been
recognized as an institutional sports board and is affiliated to 29 National
Sports Federations.
The remaining six coaches displaying
Information Technology (IT) narrate the story of IT and Communication
Technology and how it touches our lives in a significant way. The second and fifth coaches focus on the
national plan of e-Governance to bring various services closer to people in a
user friendly format. The third coach
focuses on application of IT in social sectors, especially health and education
through telemedicine, videoconferencing and e-learning. The fourth coach focus is on IT as an
Industry and how it is fulfilling the dream of crating the world into a global
village with online technologies. The last
coach is an auditorium where relevant films will be screened and has facilities
for generation of feedback and holding discussions.
The Department of Information Technology
exhibits and demonstrates capability in general, capacity and the work done in
the country in the area of Information and Communications Technology, and the
initiatives carried out by the DIT-affiliated
entities in the fields of e-governance, infrastructure, technology relevant to
rural India, language interfacing technology etc.
Inside
view of one of the IT exhibition coaches of “Commonwealth Express”
The
“IT Story of India” is being told through the 6 coaches by way of backlit
translates, frontlit digitally printed posters, short
informational films, etc. To reach out
to the common man in as effective manner as possible, the content of the
back-lit translates will be made available in regional languages in addition to
English, and the language changeover will happen in 10 languages (as and when
the train enters such a State). LCD
panels will be used to display dynamic content in the form of slideshows across
most of the coaches, and in the 6th coach, a special arrangement has
been made to showcase brief informational films on IT and e-Governance in an
auditorium-type environment and also for interactions with general visitors and
visitors from media.
One of the sports coaches depicting CWG-2010
mascot ‘Shera’ and other sports related information
The
“Commonwealth Express” exhibition train will conclude its journey in Delhi
on 1st October
2010 after covering around 50 major cities throughout
the country. It will be available for
public viewing on 1st & 2nd October 2010 at Safdarjung
Railway station in New Delhi. (PIB Features)
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Related Pictures can be downloaded from www.pib.nic.in
RTS/VN
SS-115/SF-115/15.07.2010