International Members of Rotary International – a principal partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – led the polio eradication effort during another round of the National Immunization Day (NID) to be held on 23^rd February, 2014 across India. On the day, vaccines will be reached to nearly 170 million children at approx. 709,000 vaccination booths set up for the purpose across country. The members will be spread across Delhi NCR and volunteer help to vaccinators in reaching the vaccine. They have volunteered their time and paid for their travel to be part of this extraordinary campaign in India that has successfully eradicated Polio in the country.

Rotary members from different parts of the world are travelling to India, where they immunize children against polio – a crippling disease that still paralyzes children in parts of the world. These volunteers are members of Rotary, a worldwide humanitarian service organization that has polio eradication as its main philanthropic goal.  The Rotary members will join health workers and other volunteers to administer drops of oral polio vaccine during an immunization campaign that will target millions of children under age five.

The Rotary group will work with teams of volunteers to administer the drops of oral polio vaccine to every child under the age of five.

Gurgaon, 23 February 2014: In a bid to promote adventure biking in India, Firefox Bikes, leading leisure biking company organized a mountain biking event, Firestorm in the outskirts of Delhi on Sunday. In, extravaganza event more than 150 biking passionate, both experts and enthusiasts participated to claim the ultimate biker tag. Bikers had ultimate adventure by biking in the trails of uneven off road elevations and narrow dirt paths. The race was flagged off from the trail near Golf Course Road, Gurgaon.

Firestorm is an initiative by Firefox to test the biking skills, endurance and Physical strength of the bikers in India. Biking in the trails of uneven off road elevations and narrow dirt paths was ultimate adventure for the bikers. The mountain biking race was set in the broken and craggy terrain of Gurgaon Sector-60 and around 150-200 bikers went head to head to claim gift and cash prizes of over 3 Lacs.

Mr. Shiv Inder Singh, Managing Director Firefox Bikes said, “Mountain biking is quite young adventure sport in India.FIRESTORM is a golden opportunity for the adventure passionate to enjoy the thrills. This is our third edition and we are proud to hold events like these to encourage biking in India. We want to promote cycling as an adventure sport in India. We have always succeeded in providing world class biking experience here in India to valuable customers. It’s our constant endeavor to further enhance the biking experience of our customers. We are associating and bringing the best to India in each category.”

The event had two categories: the first one was for the experts (35.5 k.m. for men and 29 km for women) and another one was for the enthusiasts (29 k.m.) for both men and women. In the expert’s category, Mr. Barrett Paul Matt was the first to finish the race, followed by Mr. K.Kiran Kumar Raju from Bangalore and Mr. Douglas Smith and they were awarded with the cash prizes of Rs. 50,000, Rs. 30,000 and Rs. 20,000 respectively while in the women category Ms. Monika was the first women to cross the finishing line followed by Ms. Anita Groser. They were awarded with Rs.30,000 and Rs. 20,000 respectively.

While in the enthusiasts category, Mr. Jitender Kumar was first to finish the race followed by Mr Yameen Mir and Mr. Sushil Huda were awarded with gift vouchers of Oakley, Woodland and Dabur. Ms. Reena Katyal was given a gift vouchers of Oakley, Woodland and Dabur as the first prize in women category followed by Ms. Becky.

Emphasizing on the significance of bike racing in India, Mr. Shiv Inder Singh further said, “These biking competitions will change the overall scenario for cycling in India. Such, competitive sports and adventure gaming will make people more passionate towards cycling. We are aimed to organize such competitions every year in different parts of the country and create awareness for cycling, an eco-friendly and health friendly habits among the masses”.

For the safety purpose, the Firefox Bikes made it compulsory for riders to wear cycling helmets and closed sports shoes. The company also asked all the participants to be in right clothing (cycling gloves and shorts) to experience biking in a better way. Trauma kits and a fleet of ambulances were also present at the event to handle the emergency situations.