Coca Cola India invites Smile Foundation for the launch of 22nd Limca Book of Records

The 22nd Limca Book of Records was released on 29 March 2011. This is one of the most prestigious events in the annual calendar of Coca Cola India Ltd. For decades Limca Book of Records has been celebrating excellence of Indians in different spheres of life. In the light of the great performances of Indian sports persons at the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games in 2010, Limca Book of Records dedicated this edition to those achievements and has published a Sports Achievers Special edition this year.

Shri Ajay Maken, the honorable Minister of Sports, was the chief guest for the event. During the launch, select top sportspersons were also honoured with “People of the Year 2011” award. The people who were honoured at the event were Preeja Sreedharan (athletics), Ashwini Akkunji (athletics), Sushil Kumar (wrestling), Alka Tomar (wrestling), Anisa Syyed (shooting), Renu Bala Chanu (weightlifting), Vijendra Singh (boxing), Subedar Bajrang La Thakkar (rowing) and Jwala Gutta (badminton). Among the awardees were also Somdev Devvarman (tennis), Sharath Kamal Achanta (table tennis), Krishna Poonia (athletics), Deepika Kumari (archery), Gagan Narag (shooting) and Suranjoy Singh (boxing), but they were not present for the event owing to their participation in some ongoing competitions. Giving away the awards were the Chief Guest Shri Ajay Maken, Mr. Atul Singh – President & CEO of Coca Cola India and South-West Asia and Ms. Vijaya Ghosh – Editor of the Limca Book of Records.

The event began with an introduction of how the Limca Book of Records celebrates Indian achievements. This was followed by a quizzing session by the notable quizmaster Barry ‘O Brien. He engaged the children in stepping forward with answers to his sports related questions and every child giving correct answers were given attractive goodies.

Also present for the occasion were the former India Hockey Captain Dhanraj Pillai, five times World Boxing Champion Mary Kom and India’s first representative at the Winter Olympic Games Shiva Keshavan, as the special guests.

Shiva Keshavan, India’s only Luge Pilot, has been representing the country internationally since 1997. He is the youngest person to ever qualify for the Olympic Games in Luge. He took great interest in interacting with the children and answered all their innocent questions with great enthusiasm. He also made the kids understand that every single person is born with certain talent; all we need to do is identify it and then nurture the talent with great passion.