The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games baton has left the UK for India on the first leg of its international tour.
The baton will travel about 120,000 miles across the globe and was sent on its way by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
It returned to host city Glasgow for a reception held by the Lord Provost before leaving with a delegation of organisers for Delhi, hosts of the games in 2010.
Scots pipers and Indian dancers performed at a ceremony at Glasgow Airport as the baton was waved off.
Louise Martin, secretary general of the Commonwealth Games Federation, carried the baton into the airport and will accompany it in the first few weeks of its tour.
She said she will not let it out of her sight as there is only one baton for the entire relay, unlike the Olympic relay where hundreds of torches are used to carry the flame.
Ms Martin, who is also chairman of Sportscotland, said: “It certainly won’t be in the hold, it’s with us all the way and does not leave our sight. We cannot afford to have anything going wrong so we’ll leave nothing to chance.
“When the baton goes into a country, it belongs to the Commonwealth Games Association of that country and they look after the baton and do what they want to do with it, but what we want is for as many people as possible to touch the baton so that when they see the opening ceremony next year they can say: ‘That was part of me, I’ve held that’.”
Glasgow schools are holding their own baton relay to mirror the international event, with schools across the city transporting a baton between each other and planning celebrations of the various countries.
One such event will see a Sri Lankan tuk-tuk rickshaw vehicle take the baton between schools later this month.
Glasgow Lord Provost Sadie Docherty will hand over the baton to pupils from Balornock Primary School. She said: “This is a wonderful opportunity for our schoolchildren to be actively involved in the countdown.”