INDIA – Cover from Goa, India to Braga, Portugal.

First Day Cover from the 2010 Indian issue ‘Queen’s Baton Relay – XIX Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010’ posted on March, 14 2011.

(Special thanks to friend Elton D’Souza)

India Post issued a set of two commemorative postage stamps to mark the baton’s entry into India as a herald to the Commonwealth Games 2010, one depicting the baton and the second, a proud Shera holding it with Delhi’s India Gate in the background.

The mascot "Shera" bearing the Queen's Baton

The Queen’s baton has traveled through all the Commonwealth countries and landed in India on 25th June 2010, Friday through the Wagah Border with big celebrations, it will spend 100 days touring the country.

The Queen’s baton was launched on 29th October 2009 at Buckingham Palace in London, with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II handing the Baton to Her Excellency the President of India, Smt. Prathibha Devisingh Patil. Abhinav Bindra, the Olympic air rifle champion, began the Baton’s journey with a relay around the Queen Victoria Monument. It’s the longest relay of all the previous Commonwealth Games, and by the end, will have covered 190 thousand km across 71 nations.

The Queen’s Baton Relay is one of the greatest traditions of the Commonwealth Games, in having been the curtain-raiser to every games since Cardiff in 1958. The relay symbolism the gathering of people from across the Commonwealth at the four-yearly festival of sport and culture.

The Baton has been designed by Michael Foley, a graduate of the National Institute of Design. It is a triangular section of aluminium twisted into a helix shape and then coated with coloured soils collected from all regions of India. The Coloured soils are a first for the styling of a Queen’s Baton. A jewel encrusted box has been used to house the Queen’s message, which was laser-engraved onto a miniature 18 carat gold leaf-representative of the ancient Indian Patras. The Queen’s baton is economically contoured for ease of use. It is 664MM high, 34MM wide at base and 86MM wide at the top and weighs 1,900 grams.

The Queen’s baton has a number of technological features including:

·         The ability to capture images and sound

·         Global positioning system (GPS) technology so the baton’s location can be tracked.

·         Embedded light emitting diodes (LEDs) which will change into the colours of a country’s flag whilst in that country.

·         A text messaging capability so that people can send messages of congratulations and encouragements to the Baton bearers throughout the relay.

Technical Details

Date of Issue: 25 June 2010

Values: 2 stamps of 500p and 2000p

Subject: Queen’s Baton Relay – XIX Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010

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Process: Lithography

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