India teen wins Commonwealth essay prize

A 13-YEAR-OLD Indian schoolgirl travelled to London to receive her Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition (QCEC) Prize from Queen Consort Camilla for a true story based on the Forest Man of India, Jadav Molai Payeng.

Maulika Pandey (inset) from Uttarakhand, was named the Junior Runner-up for her essay entitled ‘The Molai Forest’ and received her citation at a reception in Buckingham Palace last Thursday (17). It marked the first ceremony of the competition since the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September.

“All of us are bound together by a profound appreciation of the written word and of our Commonwealth,” said Camilla.

“This wonderful, extraordinary, richly diverse association of independent and equal nations and friends is, truly, ‘ours’, belonging to each one of us, and the connections between us run deep,” said the Queen Consort,

who also paid tribute to her late “dear mother-in-law… who is much in our thoughts today”.

During the palace awards ceremony, the winners aged between 13 and 17 years old travelled from India, New Zealand, Australia, and around the UK to be awarded their certificates. The Senior Winner for 2022 was Sawooly Li, 17, from Auckland for a pandemic related essay and the Junior Winner was Madeleine Wood, 14, from Melbourne for an inspirational bedtime story.

The Senior Runner-up was 17-yearold Amaal Fawzi from London, also for an essay related to frontline workers in the pandemic, and Pandey the Junior Runner-Up for her tale of Jadav Molai Payeng’s worldfamous tree planting mission in Jorhat, Assam. Extracts from their winning pieces were read by Royal Commonwealth Society ambassadors, including Indian-origin actor Ayesha Dharker.