Queen’s Baton to glow in Darjeeling - July date for relay’s hill foray

The Queen’s Baton Relay for the Commonwealth Games, Delhi, will be brought to the Queen of the Hills in July.Darjeeling is among the few places other than the capitals of the states and Union Territories where the baton will be taken. According to officials, the town has been chosen as the hills are of international interest because of the famed Darjeeling Tea and tourism potential.
“It will be a historic day for Darjeeling. We will welcome the relay in a grand manner and we are finalising the details,” Surendra Gupta, the district magistrate of Darjeeling, told The Telegraph.

“We will be holding a meeting in Darjeeling on April 16 to work out the details of the baton’s reception. This will be followed by another meeting with the state home secretary in Calcutta on April 23,” said Gupta. “The exact date for the baton to reach Darjeeling will be announced after April 23.”

The relay — a tradition since the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, Wales, in 1958 — was flagged off by the British Queen at Buckingham Palace in the presence of Indian President Pratibha Patil on October 29.

The baton will enter India through the Wagah border on June 25 and will be taken to all the state capitals. “We will receive the baton at Rangpo — it will be flown to Sikkim — and we will hold events right from Rangpo to Darjeeling (along Peshok Road). It will be kept at the Gymkhana Club Hall where a cultural event will be held in the evening,” said Gupta.

From Darjeeling, the baton will be taken by road to Kurseong and Siliguri before being flown to Guwahati the same day.

The Queen’s Baton will travel more than 190,000km in 340 days, visiting 71 countries of the Commonwealth and will contain a special message to the athletes from Queen Elizabeth II, inscribed on an 18 carat gold palm leaf and housed in a jewellery box inside the baton. The message is to be read out at the opening ceremony of the Games.

The relay for this year’s Delhi games will be the longest in the history of the Commonwealth Games with 100 days of the 340 days’ journey being kept aside to take the baton to all the states and the Union Territories.

The Queen’s Baton 2010 Delhi has incorporated innovative technologies. The baton will have a “capture card” that has the ability to capture images and sounds as it travels. It will also be fitted with a GPS system so that the exact location of the baton can be traced at all times.

“The baton is imbedded with light emitting diodes which transition into colours of the national flag of the country where it is,” says a Commonwealth Games handbook.