23 WB girls get Fair & Lovely Foundation Scholarships

Updated on: Monday, December 14, 2009

Kolkata: Twenty-three students from West Bengal were awarded the Fair & Lovely scholarship on December 8.

The number of students awarded the Fair & Lovely Foundation Scholarship in 2009 has gone up to 183 from 123 last year. This is significant, considering that 2009 is also the year of National Literacy Mission’s revamp as the National Mission for Female Literacy.

The Fair & Lovely scholars were felicitated at a ceremony in Mumbai. The chief guest of event was

“Fair & Lovely Foundation Scholarship has been doing stellar work in empowering the girl child. It only shows what all Corporate India can do to educate the underprivileged and also contribute in creation of skilled assets for the country,” said former Mumbai Sheriff, Shrimati Bakul Patel, the chief guest.

With a pan-India focus, the Fair & Lovely Foundation Scholarship helps academically brilliant girls from the lowest economic strata of the society fulfill their dreams of higher education.

Govind Rajan, category head, Skincare, Hindustan Unilever Limited said, “Women’s empowerment is linked to the India’s growth story. Look at the National Literary Mission. It was renamed to make 70 million people — 60 million of them women — functionally literate by 2012. We, at HUL, also believe that education is the key to upliftment of the girl child and women in the country. The Fair & Lovely Foundation Scholarship is a humble but vital step in support of this belief.”

Apart from course fees, the Fair & Lovely Foundation Scholarship also supports the economically-backward girls with accommodation, books and stationary costs.

This time around, the Fair & Lovely Foundation scholarship’s special focus was on Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The Fair & Lovely Foundation scholars are selected with the help of a unique screening-and-interview system that takes into account the candidates’ academic performance, economic background and also, the drive to excel.

This year, the interview-based selections were held in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Indore this year, and involved an august panel of eminent personalities from various fields.

This is the seventh year in running for the coveted scholarship, and as in the past, thousands of applications were received by the Fair & Lovely Foundation even this year.

23 WB girls get Fair & Lovely Foundation Scholarships

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