National Eminence Award conferred on India's top dignitaries

The SIES (Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswati) National Eminence awards ceremony was held on December 13 at Shanmukhananda auditorium in Sion. Awards were conferred upon the governor of UP, Mr Ram Naik, noted Indian film music composer Ilayaraaja, Prof KVijayaraghavan, secretary, Department of Science and Technology, and Mr Koteswara Rao from Andhra Pradesh.

The Sankaracharya of Kanchi Sri Jayendra Saraswati blessed the awardees before they received the award.

Each award carries a cash prize of Rs2.5 lakh, a citation in Sanskrit and a huge ornamental lamp. So far, 56 people have been honoured. Some of the earlier recipients include Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Dr R Chidambaram, Dr Jayant Narlikar, Shri Somnath Chatterjee, MS Subbulakshmi, Lata Mangeshkar, Dr Varghese Kurien, Sunil Dutt, Dilip Kumar, Sam Pitroda, Amitabh Bachchan and Sushma Swaraj.

Ilayaraaja has been selected for his outstanding contribution to Indian film music. He has composed more than 5,000 songs, and is the only composer in the history of cinema to provide film scores for more than 1,000 films. He was the first Indian composer to compose a full symphony with Ravi Shankar for Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London.

The awards were instituted by the South Indian Education Society in the year 1998 in memory of the late Seer of Kanchi, Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswati, who passed away in 1994 at the age of 100.

The awards are given in the fields of community leadership, public leadership, science and technology and to social thinkers.