The National Bravery Award is a civilian award given to children between 6-18 years old for acts of bravery in India. Asma Khan from Mumbai saved nearly 40 children from drowning when heavy rains flooded their orphanage in 2005. She made over a dozen trips carrying children to safety despite not knowing how to swim. Parth S. Sutaria from Panvel drew a trapped family to safety in 2005 when floods submerged the ground floor of their building in over 5 feet of water. He broke down their stuck door with a log to rescue them. Antara Raju Shrivastav from Andheri foiled an armed robbery attempt at her home in 2005 by alerting police when four robbers attacked

2. National Bravery Award
National Bravery Award (Rashtriya Veerta Puruskar)
Type : Civilian
Category : Children between age 6 and age 18
Instituted : 1957
Last awarded : 2014 (for the year 2013)
Total awarded : 871 children (618 boys and 253
girls)
Awarded by Government of India &
Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW)

3. Asma Khan, Mumbai
THE DAY THAT WAS:
JULY 26, 2005
AWARDED FOR:
SAVING NEARLY 40
CHILDREN FROM
DROWNING
It could be a scene straight out of a horror film. Only it was
reality in suburban Mumbai. Rain lashed on the ground. A
hundred children wailed in terror in a cramped, dark hall. Water
gushed in from all sides and inched up. The inmates of
Additional Bal Griha of the Children's Aid Society, mostly
terrified children, sang their daily prayer: "Itni shakti humme
dena data". Asma, however, was the odd one out. She started
calculating how soon the children will start drowning. "I could
only think of one thing. That I couldn't bear to see the smaller
ones drown. I am their didi." She picked up two of the smaller
kids and jumped into the water-nearly five feet of dirty, black
liquid. "I don't know how to swim. So, slowly I moved across the
slippery ground, keeping my head up to keep the water from
getting into my mouth and nose." She made over a dozen such
trips, carrying nearly 40 kids on her shoulders to safety. Wasn't
she scared? "Nothing scares me," she says. Why didn't any of
the other inmates join her? "Oh, well, I'm the tallest!" The girl
doesn't know who or where her parents are ("Kya pata," she
says). Nor does she care to know about her life history from the
orphanage files. But Asma certainly knows more about
parenting than most. She loves to watch TV serials-Shararat
and Tu Tu Mein Mein.

4. Parth S. Sutaria, Panvel
THE DAY THAT WAS: JULY
26, 2005
AWARDED FOR:
DRAWING A FLOOD-
TRAPPED FAMILY TO
SAFETY
The rain refused to let up. The ground-floor of the building,
inside the ONGC colony at Panvel, was already flooded
with water and the level was rising by the minute. At 7 p.m.,
the power went off, plunging the entire area into darkness.
By that time, the water had risen from ground-level to a
height of five feet. Parth and his mother were busy packing,
afraid that they might have to vacate their first floor flat, too.
His father, a finance manager with ONGC, was stuck on his
way home. Suddenly they heard screams and banging.
Parth rushed downstairs and waded through the water-
neck-deep by this time-towards the ground-floor flat. Their
door, he found out, was stuck and, with the water-level
rising alarmingly the trapped family faced an ominous
future. Parth found a piece of log from a neighbour and
began to hammer on the door. "People from the entire
building had come down, but just stood paralysed," he
says. After a while, the mesh gave way but the main door
still wouldn't open. By this time the water came almost up
to his mouth. "I don't remember anything," he says, "just
that door and the children crying inside and that I had to get
them out." After many more heaves, the top half splintered
and fell through. The family was pulled out to safety. Not
surprisingly, it is the army and its spirit of service that he
admires the most.

5. Antara Raju Shrivastav,
Andheri
THE DAY THAT WAS:
MAY 30, 2005
AWARDED FOR: COURAGE
IN THE FACE OF DANGER
AND FOILING A ROBBERY
ATTEMPT AT HOME.
At 2.30 in the afternoon, Antara was taking a bath.
Suddenly she heard an unusual commotion and came
out. The sight that greeted her was that of four men, who
had forced their way in, pinning her mother to the
ground. They had pulled out guns, knives and choppers
and were trying to suffocate her. "They put a gun to her
head and were asking for the keys to the locker," says
Antara. Her first reaction was to help her mother. "Then I
thought, how can I do that? They are fully armed," she
explains. She tried to retreat quietly to her bedroom and
raise an alarm. But just as she was closing her bedroom
door, one of the miscreants spotted her. He started
hitting the door, trying to break it down. Antara quickly
grabbed the phone. She called up the police control
room, informed her father, who was away at work, and
also rang her neighbours. She then opened the window
and shouted for help. The watchman of the building and
two constables from the police station, right opposite the
building, ran to their apartment. Anticipating trouble, the
robbers tried to flee. The watchmen managed to nab two
of them. "The whole thing happened within 10 minutes
and I think it changed me forever," smiles Antara.

6. India's National Bravery Award winners
2007