President Pranab Mukherjee presented the ‘Presidential Awards for Classical Tamil’ for the year 2009-10 and 2010-11 at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan here on Wednesday.
While 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 given to Dr. Jaroslav Vacek and Dr. John Ralston Marr.
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Young scholar awards for 2009-10 were conferred on Dr. T. Suresh, Dr. S. Kalpana, Dr. R. Chandrasekaran, Dr. Vaani Arivaalan and Dr. C. Muthamizhselvan, while Dr. T. Sangayya, Dr. A. Jayakumar, Dr. A. Mani, Dr. S. Chidambaram and Dr. K. Sundarapandian received the awards for 2010-11.
The awards were given to them for showing excellence and promise in teaching, research and publication in classical Tamil.
While the Tolkappiyar and Kural Pitam awardees were presented with a citation, shawl and a cash prize of Rs.5 lakh, the young scholar awardees received Rs. 1 lakh.
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The awards have been instituted by the Central Institute of Classical Tamil functioning under the aegis of Ministry of Human Resource Development.