Presidential honours given to eminent scholars

New Delhi, July 10 (UNI) President Pratibha Devisingh Patil today presented the Certificate of Honour to scholars of eminence for their outstanding contribution in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persia and Pali/Prakrit.

Two more scholars who had also been named for the award for Sanskrit could not attend the function.

The Presidential award carries a monetary grant of Rs 50,000 per year for life, a citation and a shawl to each of the awardees.

The Maharishi Badrayan Vyas Samman was given to Dr Shrinivasa Varakhedi.

This Award, which carries a one-time cash prize of Rs one lakh with a citation and a shawl, is given to a scholar in the age group of 30 to 40 years.

The award is conferred on 15 eminent scholars of Sanskrit, one scholar of Pali or Prakrit and three scholars each of Arabic and Persian every year.

The award winners in Sanskrit were Dr Chandrashekhar Dash from Puri, Orissa, Prof Lakshminarasimha Bhatta of Tirupati, Dharwad based Pt Bhalachandra Shashtry Joshi, Pt Navalapakkam N Vardachariar of Cuddalore, Dr Bhaskaracharya Tripathi(Bhopal), Suresh A Upadhyaya of Mumbai, Prof Avanindra Kumar (Delhi), P Madabhushi Chakravartyacharya (Chennai), Dr Rajdeo Mishra of Faizabad, Ramji Upadhaya of Varanasi, Dr Shiv Prasad Bharadwaj (Dehradun), Kolkata-based Prof Manabendu Banerjee and Suniti Kumar Pathak (Shantiniketan).

Delhi's Prof Lokesh Chandra and P S Ananthanarayana Somayaji of Tiruchirapalli could not make it to the ceremony.

Those who were given the President's Certificate of Honour in Persian were Patna based Mohd Sharaf-e-Alam, Prof M Ghulam Rasul of Gujarat and Prof Maria Bilquis of Aligarh Muslim University.

In Arabic, the awards went to Mohsin Usmani, Habib Rehan Khan Nadwi and Shafiq Ahmad Khan.

Prof Binayendranath Chaudhury, who has collaborated with the Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen for compiling a critical Pali dictionary, was honoured for his contribution to Pali/Prakrit.

UNI MMG LS AS2005