India to institute national awards for foreigners

The government is in the process to institute national awards for foreigners for work related to India and furthering Indian culture. All in all, the award will be given to those foreigners who have worked in connection to India or can be described as Indophiles.

These foreigners won't be PIOs or NRIs. Remember, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman has been given to honour exceptional NRIs and PIOs. The awards were first instituted in 2003 and since 2016 the number of awardees has been doubled. The awards are given every 2 years. 

Padma awards have also regularly featured names of NRIs, PIOs, and foreign nationals. The Padma awards are announced every year by the Indian government on Republic day. In 2021, India announced that it is conferring Padma Vibhushan to former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe. 

This year it was announced that Padma Bhushan will be conferred to Microsoft's Satya Narayana Nadella and Google's Sundararajan Pichai. This year's Padma Shri list included Polish national Maria Christopher Byrski, Ireland's Rutger Kortenhorst, Thailand's Chirapat Prapandavidya for work done in Sanskrit while Russia's Tatiana Lvovna Shaumyan who is the country's leading Indophile.