Sitaram Jindal Foundation Honours Justice Hegde, Dr Veerendra Heggade

Media Release
Pics: Prakash Shetty Ulepady
 
New Delhi, Feb 25: Justice Santosh Hegde and Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Dr Veerendra Heggade along with 25 other luminaries, including Dr A P J Abdul Kalam and Anna Hazare were honoured by Sitaram Jindal Foundation with the Jindal Prize and S R Jindal Prize at a glittering felicitation ceremony held at New Delhi on Thursday February 23.

Those honoured included individuals and Institutions who are beacons of selfless service to the society. They were awarded with a total prize money of Rs 7.30 crore.

Prizes of Rs 1 crore each were bestowed upon Dr A P J Abdul Kalam for Science and Technology, Justice N Santosh Hegde for Social Development, Dr Veerendra Heggade for Health, including drugless healing, DHAN Foundation, Madurai for Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation and Rishi Valley Education Centre, Chittor (AP) for Education with moral upliftment.

The icon of non-violence and universal human values, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar who seeks global peace through service and dialogue honoured the awardees.  Tejendra Khanna, Lt Governor of Delhi was the guest of honour who also gave away prizes to winners.

The Jindal Prize and S R Jindal Prize have been instituted to accolade exceptional service of current significance rendered by individuals or organisations for the welfare of Indian citizens in the country. It is expected that the recognition garnered by the Jindal Prize and SR Jindal Prize awardees will catalyze their efforts towards social upliftment.

Patron of the Foundation and CMD of Jindal Aluminum, Dr Sitaram Jindal said, "The most practical and meaningful way to give back to society, I feel, is to bring hope to the poor and downtrodden in distress. I admire Albert Einstein for his belief 'Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile'. It is imperative that the society acknowledges the contribution of selfless workers working silently and honours them with the amount of respect they deserve, so that others are inspired to take the cause ahead. It is with this objective in view that the Foundation decided to institute the Jindal and S R Jindal Prizes."

S R Jindal Prize (Honorary) was awarded to Lala Mange Ram Agarwal for his exceptional selfless service to society.

Established in 1969, the Sitaram Jindal Foundation is an apolitical, non religious and charitable trust, engaged in the field of education, health and social service with special emphasis on nature cure. The Foundation, besides extending financial support to other charitable institutions, has also directly set up several educational institutions and hospitals. The Foundation also assists the poor and deserving students through scholarships.

Five S R Jindal Prizes worth Rs 25 lac each for Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation were bestowed on Anna Hazare; Sankara Eye Care Institutions India, Coimbatore; Utthan, Allahabad; Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission, Barrackpore; and jointly to Dr G Gopal Reddy, Agriculture Scientist, Nalgonda, AP, and Lok Biradari, Prakalp (started by Baba Amte on 1973).
 
Dr Sitaram Jindal has set aside Rs 125 crore to form a corpus of funds for creating a perpetual prize, to honour the deserving, year after year. Such perpetual financial stability of prize schemes is uncommon except in rare cases like the Nobel Prize.

Nine S R Jindal Prizes for Crusade against Corruption worth Rs 10 lac each were given to Tehelka; Manish Sisodia, New Delhi; Dr Rajinder K Singla, Chandigarh; Manjunath Shanmugam (posthumous); Ramesh Verma, Hissar; Shehla Masood (posthumous), Bhopal; jointly to Dr Ashok Khemka, IAS, Chandigarh and Sanjiv Chaturvedi, IFS, Haryana; jointly to Rajnikant Borele, Maharashtra and Ajay B Bose, Central Railway, Mumbai; and jointly to Pawan Kumar Chaudhary, Patna and Atul Kumar, Kolkata.

Three Gallantry Awards were also posthumously given to Tuka Ram Omble, Mohan Chand Sharma and Maj Sandeep Unnikrishnan for their supreme sacrifice in the fight against terrorism.

Together Jindal and S R Jindal Prizes had attracted close to 2000 nominations in the first year of launch, mirroring the exceptional response for the Prizes. The nominations were invited from across India and abroad through advertisements in print and electronic media as well as the website of Jindal Foundation. The nominations received were adjudicated by Juries comprising eminent persons of high integrity through a process independent of the working of the Foundation. These Prizes will be awarded every year, year after year.

At the end of the felicitation ceremony, Sitaram Jindal Foundation announced that the nominations for Sitaram Jindal Prize-2012 are now open. Sitaram Jindal Prize 2012 will be bigger with 7 prizes of Rs 1 crore each. The last date for receipt of nominations will be April 16, 2012. Details are available at www.jindalprize.org.