Moorje Suneetha Prabhu, who was recently awarded the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2020 at Rashtrapathi Bhavan in New Delhi, was offered a rousing welcome on her arrival at the Mangalore International Airport on Tuesday.
Suneetha Prabhu is a native of Belthangady and a student of class 11 at Centre For Advanced Learning (CFAL), Mangaluru. She received the award for innovating a mosquito repellent cloth.
Suneetha told reporters at the airport that the idea of the innovation struck her while she was studying in class 10 at SDM English Medium High School, Ujire. Encouraged by her teachers, she began working on it. After much research, she was able to design the mosquito repellent cloth out of cotton. The cloth will retain its repellent power until 49 washes.
She developed her project in Pune and has applied for a patent for her repellent cloth.
The project was selected to be exhibited at the Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science (IRIS) National Science Fair in New Delhi in 2018. The top 20 of the 250 entries, including the mosquito repellent cloth, were featured in the International Science and Engineering Fair in the US. Suneetha got an opportunity to interact with participants from 180 countries, she said.
Suneetha expressed happiness at receiving the medal from President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, New Delhi, on January 22. Along with other awardees, she took part in an event organised at the residence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Suneetha’s ambition is to carry out research in Science and continues working on experiments on other types of cloth with mosquito repellent power.
Suneetha’s parents Vivekananda Prabhu and Shantala Prabhu said that they were proud of their daughter’s achievement at a young age. Vivekananda Prabhu is a proprietor of a sawmill in Belthangady.
Mangalore South MLA D Vedavyas Kamath said that Suneetha had made the district proud. BJP leader Pratap Simha said that Suneetha’s achievement is an inspiration to all students to carry out research in innovative fields and topics.
Former MLA Yogish Bhat, Belthangady Venkataramana Temple Trustee Shashidhar Pai, advocate Sudhesh and Suneetha’s elder brother Dr Rahul Prabhu were present.