On Children's Day, Google inspires kids to explore space

NEW DELHI: Internet search engine Google on Wednesday celebrated Children's Day in India with a doodle inspiring children to explore space.

This year, the search engine's theme for the day's doodle was "What Inspires You". 

A student from Mumbai, who won the 2018 Doodle 4 Google competition showed her fascination with space exploration. 

The doodle shows a child looking at a sky dotted with stars with a telescope.

Pingla Rahul created galaxies, planets and spacecraft to represent the vastness of things in space - carefully arranged to form letters in the Google logo. 

There were four more group winners that Google chose: a doodle on farmers, animals, wise monkeys and a study desk, the Google blogpost said. 

The winners were chosen by Arun Iyer, famous artist and YouTube Kids Creator Harun Robert, India's leading YouTube Creator Sejal Kumar and the Google Doodles team lead Ryan Germick. Rahul received 300,000 votes from people. 

India celebrates Children's Day November 14 as a tribute to her first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was born on the day in 1889.

Nehru fondly called "Chacha Nehru" was a favourite among kids. His books on Indian history and world history written to aid his daughter Indira Gandhi is read by children in schools and the same has also been adapted into TV series.

India started celebrating Children's Day from 1959, when it used to be on November 20, which the UN designated as the Universal Children's Day.

Following Nehru's death in 1964, it was unanimously decided to celebrate his birthday as Bal Diwas in the country due to his love and affection towards children.

On this day, chocolates and gifts are distributed among children. Schools organise debates, drama, music and dance performances often enacted by the teachers.