The President of India SmtDroupadiMurmuconferred Padma Shri to Dr. Sankurathri Chandrasekhar in field of Social Work, Shri ChintalapatiVenkatapathi Raju and Shri Kota SatchidanandaSastry in field of Art from Andhra Pradeshin Civil Investiture Ceremony here today. The President also conferred Padma Shri on Prof. Prakash Chandra Sood in field of Literature & Education.

 

 

A brief citation about the life and work of awardees is given below-

1. Dr. Sankurathri Chandrasekhar has been conferred Padma Shri in field of Social Work.

 

Dr. Sankurathri Chandrasekhar is an eminent social activist and the Managing Trustee of Sankurathri Foundation; the President of ManjariSankurathri Memorial Foundation; Correspondent of SaradaVidyalayam and Managing Director of Srikiran Institute of Ophthalmology.

Born on 20^thNovember, 1943. Dr. Sankurathri received his M.Sc. degree in Zoology from Andhra University, M.S. degree in Biology from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada and Ph.D. degree from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Later, he worked in Canada for 13 years in various capacities and returned to India in 1988 to start the humanitarian work.

Dr. Sankurathri established Sankurathri Foundation as a memorial to his wife and two children killed in the explosion of Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland on 23^rd June, 1985. The Foundation’s aim is to improve the quality of life among rural poor and needy through some sustainable developmental projects. He has been in Kakinada since 1988 to organize, implement and manage the projects, children’s education, quality eye care and emergency relief measures during natural disasters. He educated over 5,000 rural students, eye care services to over 37 lakhs of people and performed over 3,25,000 surgeries.

Dr. Sankurathri’s work is well recognized. He has won many awards and recognitions for his selfless services to the humanity.An hour-long documentary “A Ray of Light” was broadcasted by Canadian Broadcasting Company in 2005; “Margadarsi” by ETV 2 in 2008 and “Velugu - Veliginchu” by Maa TV in 2011. For his outstanding work, he received many awards like CNN Hero by CNN International in 2008 and was the first Indian to be nominated. He was invited by the World Volunteer Conference, Edmonton, Canada in 1998, and in 2009 he was featured as one among six people making Canada proud by his work. In 2010, he received Certificate of recognition by Government of Ontario, Canada for the outstanding contribution to humanity. In 2012, he received “Doctor of Laws” degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. In 2013, he received “Humanitarian of the Year” by the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce. In 2016, he was awarded “Outstanding Humanitarian Service Award”, by The Canadian Ophthalmological Society for unfailing dedication and compassion in providing accessible, equitable and quality eye care to underserved populations.

In India, Dr. Sankurathri received best NGO award for performing maximum number of cataract surgeries by the Government of Andhra Pradesh in 2002 and 2003. He received “Service above self Award” from Rotary International in 2004; received ASSOCHAM Social Innovation Excellence Award in 2012 and received “Senior Citizen” Award by CNN - IBN in 2013for the outstanding work. In 2019, he received “Certificate of Appreciation for the services rendered to poor and downtrodden” by Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, the then Vice-President of India.

 

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2. Shri ChintalapatiVenkatapathi Rajuhas been conferred Padma Shri in field of Art.

 

Shri ChintalapatiVenkatapathi Raju, a grassroots innovator from Etikoppaka village, Anakapalle, Andhra Pradesh, is known for preserving the traditional method of making Etikoppaka toys.

 

Born on 14^thMay, 1963at Jonnavalsa, Vijayanagaram, Shri Raju got his secondary education at Visakhapatnam and Vijayanagaram. He completed his SSC in the year 1979.

 

Shri Raju has developed a variety of contemporary wooden lacquer toys for which a market was gradually emerging in India and abroad. He explored plant sources and the lead-free dyes in their roots, barks, stems, leaves, fruits, seeds and much more. His experiments resulted in natural dye concentrates over wide-ranging colours, including royal red and Indigo. He walked through a strategy of strengthening the local traditions of making vegetable dyes, develop new tools, techniques and methods for increasing the bright range of products.This traditional method of making wooden products and toys by using non-toxic paints and natural dyes, defined the identity of the craft community of the Etikoppaka village in Southern India, which was otherwise a slowly dying art.

 

Shri Raju was supported by National Innovation Foundation (NIF) - for his efforts to be more vocal about local. Financial support was giventhrough Micro Venture Innovation Fund (MVIF) to satisfy working capital needs, setting up of a community lab at the premises of innovator which could facilitate in-situ product improvements, research and development. To strengthen their relevance, the portfolio of innovative products have been made highly interesting, and now, there are a plethora of toy shapes that kids like. Etikoppaka wooden lacquer toys are well rounded and made using natural dye colours. This makes them safe, especially for kids. Keeping this in mind, he remains glued to the conventional art form. Moreover, he engaged his fellow artisans and also provided them with an employment opportunity locally in the same village.For his work on Etikoppaka toys, that is, bringing back the lost glory of local toys, he has been praised by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi in his 68^thMann Ki Baat.

 

Shri Rajuwas conferred with NIF's 2^ndBiennial National Grassroots Innovation and Outstanding Traditional Knowledge Award in the year 2002 by former President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. INTACH, Vizag Chapter, 2009 gave him the Lifetime Achievement award. In the year 2018, he was invited to be part of the 5th batch of the Innovation Scholar-In- Residence programme organized by RashtrapatiBhavan. In 2019, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Craft Council of India, Telangana. He has also participated in the annual Festival of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (FINE), the biggest platform for grassroots innovators to showcase the merit of their innovations, organized by NIF and DST under the aegis of RashtrapatiBhavan.

 

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3. Shri Kota SatchidanandaSastry has been conferred Padma Shri in field of Art.

Shri Kota SatchidanandaSastry is a famous artist of Harikatha. In his more than seven decades of artist career, he contributed his best to the art of Harikatha.

Born on 12^th August, 1934 at Addanki Village, in Prakasam District, in Andhra Pradesh, Shri Sastry received his primary education in Addanki and started his artist career in 1946 as an artist of Harikatha and is continuing till date. He learnt it from Shri AkkapeddiRamakrishnaiah and some others. Shri PanditaradhyulaSambamurthi (Father of Cine Playback Singer Shri S.P. BalaSubrahmanyam) who was an exponent in the art of Harikatha stood as a model to him. Later, he learnt the scripts of Mahabharatha from his Guru Late MusunooriSuryanarayanaDasGaru.

During the decades of 60s to 90s and early 21^st Century, Shri Sastry extensively gave his performances throughout Andhra Pradesh and other States of India andabroad like England and Mauritius. He used the works of Shri Adibhatla Narayana Dasu, Shri ParimiSubrahmanyaBhagavathulu and Shri Peddinti Surya Narayana DeekshitaDasu. He sang Kruthis from Tyagaraju, Purandaradasu, Ramadasu, Annamayya, Kshetrayya, SadasivaBrahmendra and many Vaggeyakaras. He quotes the work of modern poets like Sri Sri,Jashua, Athreya, Arudra, Devulapalli Krishna Sastry and many others. Through his art form, he tried to bring the moral values to the common man. According to the scene and situation he enacted the characters and show cased them to the spectators.

During his long career Shri Sastry performed more than 15000 performances. He made a lot of study and research and got acquaintance with the characters and bhavas, emotions, dialogues, actions and ideas. He was given "A" top rank in All India Radio.

Shri Sastry got felicitations from former Chief Minister Shri N.T. Rama Rao, Shri M. Janardhan Reddy and Shri Nara Chandra Babu Naidu. Many legendaries, luminaries like Dr. AkkineniNageswara Rao (Padma Vibhushan awardee), Shri GhantashalaVenkateswara Rao (Padma Shri awardee), Shri VedantamSatyanarayanaSarma (Padma Shri awardee), Shri C. Narayana Reddy, Dr. MangalampalliBalaMuralikrishna, ShriTurlapatiKutumba Rao. He was felicitated with titles like "Katha Gana Kala Kovida", "Viswa Kala Prapoorna", "HarikathaChakravarthi".He got SangeetNatakAcademyAwardfor the year 2018. He got "HamsaPuraskar"for the year 2015 from Andhra Pradesh State Government.

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4. Prof. Prakash Chandra Soodhas been conferred Padma Shri in field of Literature & Education.

 

Prof. Prakash Chandra Sood is an eminent nuclear researcher and scientist. Another area of his activity is institute building not only for academic, but for the wider field of national development.

Born on 1^stOctober, 1928, Prof. Sood got his early education in DAV institutions in Jalandhar (Punjab) followed by M.Sc. (Hons) degree of Punjab University in 1952. After three years of teaching in Punjab Government colleges, he proceeded to USA where he completed his Ph.D from Florida State University in January 1958 in a record time of just two years and three months. After a brief stint in BARC (1968-69) he moved to Banaras Hindu University for the next 29 years as a distinguished teacher, academic administrator and developer of new facilities. Post retirement he has been serving as honorary professor at the SSSIHL, Puttaparthi.

As a Nuclear Researcher, Prof.Sood has reported his findings in 320 publications in prestigious national and international journals and conferences. As a research propagator, he has been personally connected with 67 Universities and Research labs in India and 62 Institutions in 12 nations abroad.

As an Institute builder, Prof.Soodwas very closely associated with two research centres of national importance, namely DAE Cyclotron Centre (VECC) in Calcutta and the first ever UGC sponsored Inter-University Nuclear Science Centre (NSC, later renamed as IUAC), in New Delhi, from planning to commissioning stage. In the early seventies, at BHU, he set up the first van de Graff accelerator based Nuclear Research Lab. In the mid seventies, he took up the challenge of building and setting up the first ever computer center in BHU, wherein he served as founder director (1978-83). He also served as Dean, Faculty of Sciences and Head of department of Computer Science during 1985-87. He also introduced Computer Science as a regular curriculum course in Banaras Hindu University.He was hosted by the Royal Society, UK and Japan society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) for lecture tours. He was also invited to various academic programmes in several countries including USA, Canada, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Nepal.

Prof. Sood is the recipient of numerous awards and honours. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (FNASc) since 1978, UGC National Fellow (1983-85), UGC Emeritus Fellow (1989- 1992), Vice President, Indian Physical Society (1985-87), Vice President, Indian Physics Association (1979-81). At the International level, UNESCO-IAEA sponsored International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) selected him as a Senior Associate for a 6-year term. He received the National Science Foundation (NSF-USA), International Travel awards for collaborative research (1975-84).

 

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