K.A.Viswanathan

At a glittering ceremony followed by the invocation song and vedic chanting by the students of the SIES Vedapatashala  the Governor of UP Mr. Ram Naik , Noted Indian film music composer  Ilayaraaja, Prof . K.Vijayaraghavan , Secretary department of Science and Technology, and Mr. Koteswara Rao from Andhra Pradesh received the  SIES –Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswati National Eminence award held at the Shanmukhananda Sri. Chandrasekarendra Saraswati auditorium. Earlier all the awardees were received with NCC guard of honour. The Sankaracharya of Kanchi Sri Jayendra Saraswati blessed the awardees before they received the award.

The awards were instituted by the South Indian Education Society in the year 1998 in memory of the late Seer of Kanchi Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswati who passed away in 1994 at the age of 100. The awards are given in the fields of Community leadership , Public leadership, Science and Technology and Social thinkers. Each award carries a cash prize of Rs.2.5 lakh, a citation in Sanskrit , a huge ornamental lamp. So far 56 people have been honoured .

Ilayaraaja has been selected for his outstanding contribution to Indian film music. He has composed more than 5000 songs and is the only composer in the history of cinema to provide film scores for more than 1000 films. He was the first Indian composer to compose a full symphony with Ravi Shankar for Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London.

Some of the earlier recipients of the awards in the past includes Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Dr. R.Chidambaram, Dr. Jayant Narlikar,  Shri Somnath Chatterjee, M.S.Subbulakshmi, Ms Lata Mangeshkar, Dr. Varghese Kurien, Mr. Sunil Dutt , Mr. Dilip Kumar, Sam Pitroda, Amitabh Bachchan and Sushma Swaraj .