Mangaluru Cadet Aashna Rai wins gold medal at NCC PM rally

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Jan 29, 2023: In a new feather to Mangaluru’s cap, Cadet Aashna Rai, 17, from the 6 Karnataka Air Squadron of the National Cadet Corps (NCC), received the gold medal in the All India Best Cadet Competition in the Senior Wing category for air cadets, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.

Aashna, a student at St. Aloysius PU College (commerce), enrolled with Flight A of the squadron in 2021. She is the daughter of Ramanna Rai, a businessman, and Akshatha Rai, a teacher and special educator.

Wing Commander Chandan Garg, Commanding Officer, 6 Karnataka Air Squadron, NCC, Mangaluru, said that cadet Aashna, always stood out as a motivated and hard-working cadet. "She has been putting in sincere efforts in training and selection camps, continuously, for the last four months," he said.

Her parents, who went to Delhi to witness the event, said they were proud that their daughter received the highest individual honour in the NCC. They said Aashna was selected for the award after doing well in drills, appearing for three exams, group discussion, public speaking, and a personality interview that is conducted by the DG NCC, as well as firing weapons, cultural activities, troop handling, and flag area briefing. She earlier participated in seven state-level camps of 10 days each, and a 30-day camp at the national level. She was the best cadet in the Mangaluru unit of the NCC and then qualified for the state-level camp, where she won the Best Cadet of the Karnataka-Goa directorate and was chosen for the Republic Day camp. In the camp, she competed in various events with the best cadets from the other 17 directorates.

Former NCC cadets Anish Rahul, Athik DB, Rupith D’Souza and Manish Bhat, helped her with a lot of personal coaching before the camps.