International Day of the Girl Child: key events recorded on October 11

International Day of the Girl Child is observed every year on October 11. The day is considered important for drawing attention to girls' rights and the problems that hem them in. Its aim is to raise awareness on issues such as education, health, safety and social equality.

Girls, especially in developing countries, face problems such as being kept away from school, child marriage and gender discrimination. The day is used to stress the need to focus on girls' education and give them opportunities.

Policy initiatives for the development of girls are taken around the world through this day. Many social organisations, schools and governments work to secure girls' rights. The day matters for building an equality in which every girl in society can fulfil her dreams. The message is that society's progress lies in girls' progress.

Now a look at the events recorded on October 11 in the history of the country and the world. In 1811, the first steam-powered ferry began operating in New York harbour with the ferry Juliana. In 1852, the University of Sydney was founded in Australia. In 1958, NASA launched Pioneer 1, its first space mission, but it could not reach a stable orbit. In 1968, NASA launched Apollo 7, the first successful crewed Apollo mission.

In 1984, Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman astronaut to take a spacewalk. In 1987, the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka began Operation Pawan. In 2000, NASA launched STS-92, the 100th space shuttle mission. In 2001, V. S. Naipaul was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the same year Polaroid Corporation announced it was going bankrupt.

Among those born on this date are Bengali storyteller and novelist Charuchandra Bandyopadhyay in 1876; freedom fighter Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan in 1902; Padma Vibhushan social reformer Chandikadas Amritrao Deshmukh in 1916, and in the same year film and stage actress Meenakshi Shirodkar. Indian-American mathematician and physicist Dr Harish-Chandra Mehrotra was born in 1923, journalist and columnist Behram Contractor in 1930, and Sahitya Akademi Award-winning Gujarati poet, writer and editor Suresh Dalal in 1932.

Film actor and producer Amitabh Bachchan was born in 1942, West Indies cricketer Keith Boyce in 1943, Vijay Bhatkar, creator and founder of the Param supercomputer and C-DAC, in 1946, Hindi film producer and director Mukul Anand in 1951, qawwali singer Altaf Raja in 1967 and cricketer Hardik Pandya in 1993.

Several prominent figures also died on this date. British physicist James Prescott Joule, who propounded the theory of the conversion of energy, died in 1889. Rashtrasant Tukdoji Maharaj died in 1968. Aggressive left-handed batsman Khanderao Moreshwar Ranganekar died in 1984, and Camlin group founder Kakasaheb Dandekar in 1994. Keith Boyce died in 1996.

Internationally renowned sculptor Bipul Kanti Saha died in 1997, Marathi film director Ramakant Kavthekar in 1999, Donald Dewar, the first minister of Scotland, in 2000, and actress Dina Pathak in 2002. Indian spiritual teacher Chinmoy Kumar Ghose died in 2007 and Indian nuclear engineer A. Gopalakrishnan in 2022.