Srinagar, Sep 15: The Postal Department is organizing a four day mega Philately Exhibition ‘Chinar 2011’ from September 26 to showcase around one lakh rare stamps of the Country and various foreign countries.
 “The exhibition will display the World’s first Postage stamp, Penny Black and India’s first Postage Stamp. The stamps carrying many interesting topics including Harry Potter, Princess Diana, magnificent cars, Hollywood, Railways, and Environment, Stamps on Fauna of Kashmir, Defence Services, Animal Kingdom, Beautiful Birds and many more exciting things will be on display”, Chief Postmaster General, Jammu and Kashmir Circle John Samuel told reporters on sidelines of the curtain raiser function of the exhibition at SKICC here.
 “We named the exhibition as Chinar because Chinar Tree is the identity of Kashmir,” he added.
 He said the Governor N.N. Vohra would inaugurate the Philatelic Exhibition. “This exhibition will kick start the Post Office Festival in Jammu and Kashmir”, he said.
 Samuel said the Department would put 250 frames and 60, 000 rare postal stamps for public display in the exhibition. “People can buy the stamps from the exhibition as well.”  He said the exhibition would feature the personalized stamps under ‘My Stamp’ project to involve more and more people.
 My Stamp is a newly introduced concept by India Post, wherein a personalized stamp-sheet with personal photo printed on it can be ordered by buyers.
 “The India Posts Department is thinking to make this service a regular feature to give a boost to the Indian postal service at a time when courier services and e-communication have taken over correspondence. And Philately Exhibition is the best occasion to promote it”, Samuel said.
 To attract more and more youngsters, he said, the Department would also hold a competition among students. He said the competition will be held in different categories including Letter Writing, Stamp Designing and Quiz”.
 He said the competition will be held among school and college students, and General group. The fourth group will take part as non-competitors. Winners of first three best letters will get cash award for Rs.10,000, Rs.5,000 and Rs.2,500 respectively.
 He informed the exhibition will be free and all the educational institutes can to participate.
 “Exhibition will be open from 10a.m. to 05p.m. on all the four days. Entry to the Exhibition is free and all are permitted,” Samuel said.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:00:00 IST