ISRO Chairman conferred Sankara Ratna Award 2006

Chennai, Apr 21 (UNI) Eminent Space scientist and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G Madhavan Nair was today conferred the Sankara Ratna Award 2006 in recognition of his outstanding support and service to Sankara Nethralaya.

The award, instituted by the famous Sankara Nethralaya Hospitals, was presented to him by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram in presence of IOB Chairman and Managing Director T S Narayanasami.

Through ISRO, Dr Nair had been instrumental in the launch of Sankara Nethralaya's rural tele-opthalmology project in 2003. He was also in the forefront of bringing the benefits of space technology to the national development, especially benefitting the rural and needy sections of the society.

Within the first two months of taking over as ISRO Chairman, Dr Nair saw three successful missions, including the communication satellite INSAT-3E and Resourcestat-1.

He also encouraged the technical activities related to all facets of space debris within ISRO and successfully introduced end-of-the-mission passivation in both main launch vehicle and ISRO.

Mr Narayanasami also presented a cheque of Rs one crore to the Sankara Nethralaya on the occasion.

UNI