The Pravasi Bharatiya Samman will be given to 27 Indians living abroad.
Guyana President Mohamed Irfaan Ali and renowned Canadian scientist Dr Vaikuntam Iyer Lakshmanan are among 27 recipients of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award for 2023, the highest honour bestowed on Indians living abroad.
President Droupadi Murmu will present the award as part of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention, which will be held in Indore from January 8 to 10.
Ali, who was born into an Indo-Guyanese Muslim family, took the oath of office in August 2020.
He will also be the honorary chairman of the 17th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention.
Amit Kailash Chandra Lath, a Goan businessman, received the award as well. He assisted in the evacuation of Indian students from Ukraine into Poland when war broke out with Russia.
Dr. Vaikuntam Iyer Lakshmanan, a scientist and innovator who moved to Canada in 1974, channelled his passion for community service by supporting organisations such as the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce and the Canada-India Business Council.
He has sponsored clean drinking water systems and a mobile hospital in rural India, and he received the Indo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
FedEx Corporation CEO Rajesh Subramaniam, Australian economist Chennupati Jagadish, and Israel-based chef Reena Vinod Pushkarna are among those who have received the award.
“A Jury-cum-Awards Committee, with the Vice-President as Chairman and the External Affairs Minister as Vice-Chair, and other distinguished members from various walks of life considered the nominations… and unanimously selected the awardees,” according to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs.
