Pranab to confer Tagore award on Ravi Shankar
New Delhi, Mar 6 : President Pranab Mukherjee will confer Tagore Award for Cultural Harmony on sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar on Thursday.
The Award to Pandit Ravi Shankar was announced on May 7, 2012 during the closing ceremony of the commemoration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of world bard Rabindranath Tagore.
Since Pandit Ravi Shankar passed away on Dec 11, 2012, the award is being presented to his wife Sukanya Shankar, who is currently in India.
The award ceremony will be held on Thursday (Mar 7) at Rashtrapati Bhavan here.
The award shall be presented by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Minister of Culture Chandresh Kumari Katoch and other dignitaries will also be present during the ceremony.
The Tagore Award for Cultural Harmony has been instituted as a part of the commemoration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and an announcement to this effect was made by the then Finance Minister in his Budget Speech on Feb 28, 2011.
It is an international award with prize money of Rs. 1 Crore for promoting values of cultural harmony.
The jury constituted for the selection of Tagore Award for the year 2012 under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister of India selected Pandit Ravi Shankar to be the first recipient of the Tagore Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to cultural harmony and universal values.