President of India presents Presidential Awards for Classical Tamil

President with the awardees of the Presidential Awards for Classical Tamil at Rashtrapati Bhavan

The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee presented the ‘Presidential Awards for Classical Tamil’ for the year 2009-10 and 2010-11 today (October 9, 2013) at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan. 

The Tolkappiyar Award for lifetime achievement in Classical Tamil was awarded to Dr. Iravatham Mahadevan and Prof. Tamizhannal Periakaruppan for 2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively. The Kural Pitam Award was awarded to Dr. Jaroslav Vacek and Dr. John Ralston Marr for the same years. 

Awards were also given to young Tamil scholars who have shown excellence and promise in teaching, research and publication in classical Tamil. Dr. T. Suresh, Dr. S. Kalpana, Dr. R. Chandrasekaran, Dr. Vaani Arivaalan, Dr. C. Muthamizhselvan were conferred with the young scholars Awards for 2009-10 while for 2010-11 Dr. T. Sangayya, Dr. A. Jayakumar, Dr. A. Mani, Dr. S. Chidambaram and Dr. K. Sundarapandian received the awards. 

The Presidential Awardees are presented with a citation and shawl apart from a cash award of Rs.5 lakh for Tolkappiyar and Kural Peedam awardees and Rs.1 lakh for young Scholar Awardees. 

These awards have been instituted by the Central Institute of Classical Tamil functioning under the aegis of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. 

Courtesy: Press Information Bureau (pib.nic.in)