Government To Institute National Awards For Foreigners Who Are ‘Indophiles’

New Delhi: Soon, foreigners will be given awards for their work related to India. The Indian government is in the process of instituting national awards for foreigners for furthering Indian culture. The award will be given to those foreigners who have worked in connection to India, or can be described as “Indophiles”, WION reported.

These foreigners won’t be PIOs or NRIs. India’s “Pravasi Bharatiya Samman” is given to honour exceptional NRIs and PIOs. The awards were first instituted in 2003 and since 2016 the number of awardees has been doubled. The awards are given every two years.

Padma awards have also regularly featured names of NRIs, PIOs, and foreign nationals. In 2021, India announced that it is conferring Padma Vibhushan to former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe.  This year, it conferred Padma Bhushan to Microsoft’s Satya Narayana Nadella and Google’s Sundararajan Pichai.

This year’s Padma Shri list included Polish national Maria Christopher Byrski, Ireland’s Rutger Kortenhorst, Thailand’s Chirapat Prapandavidya for work done in Sanskrit while Russia’s Tatiana Lvovna Shaumyan who is the country’s leading Indophile.