Rashtrapati Award
Rashtrapati Awards used to be given by the President of India, in some cases the Prime Minister of India, for achievements in the field of sports, art, military, literature, cinema, culture, science and technology, or Scouting. The award-giving ceremony was conducted in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President's official residence. The awards were a part of the Indian honours system. However, after gradual systematic categorizations over a period, the awards were made independent to the field of achievement.
| Rashtrapati Award | |||
|---|---|---|---|
.png.webp) The Bharat Scouts and Guides version of the Rashtrapati Award | |||
| Owner | President of India | ||
| Awarded for | achievements in the field of sports, art, military, literature, cinema, culture, science and technology, or Scouting | ||
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For example, from 1968 onwards, the Directorate of Film Festivals completely took over its charge as the governing body for National Film Awards India. Before 1968, the award in the field of best acting in Indian Cinema was given out as a Rashtrapati Award. Other examples are Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna for sports, National Bravery Award, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, Jnanpith Award for literature, "Maharishi Badrayan Vyas Samman" (a presidential honour for young scholars below age 40 who have worked to bridge the ancient and the modern especially using IT).
One such award winner is from Assam. He is Subal Routh, (then) from Namrup Assam who worked in the (then) HFC (now) BVFC. At that time, BVFC imported a machine from Russia. The machine when came to the plant, could not be assembled by the workers and the top engineers from HFC. Subal Routh, who was an engineer and was from a lower post volunteered to fix the machine for the company as it would cost a lot for bringing engineers into the plant. He was able to find a way and engineered a design of assembling the imported machine which was then ultimately done according to Subal's instructions. The machine was successfully assembling and was now fully functional. All the top engineers as well as the residents of Namrup, Assam were amazed by his intelligence and logical thinking. He then received the President (Rashtrapati) Award from former President, Late Neelam Sanjiva Reddy in the year 1983.