India awards Guyana’s President highest award to person of Indian origin

Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali will later this month be conferred with India’s highest award for persons of Indian origin, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award (PBSA), for 2023, the Indian High Commission said Monday.

He was selected from among a list of 27 nominees for this year. The 17th PBSA will be conferred by the Honourable President of India as part of the upcoming Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) Convention (Indian Diaspora Day)  to be held in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, from 8-10 January 2023.

“President Ali joins 26 other persons of Indian origin / non-resident Indians who have been recognized by the Government of India for their outstanding achievements both in India and abroad.,” the High Commission in Georgetown said.

The Award will be conferred during the valedictory session  of the Convention on 10 January 2023. President Ali has been invited as the Chief Guest for the upcoming PBD Convention and will be travelling to India with a high level delegation comprising of both official and private sector representatives, the High Commission said.

High Commissioner of India to Guyana Dr. K J Srinivasa has officially congratulated H.E. Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali on being the recipient of the prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award calling it a recognition of the outstanding contributions of President Ali to Guyana and his efforts to bring about the rapid and equitable development of Guyana.High Commissioner also expressed hope that the upcoming visit of President Ali to India for the PBD 2023 and subsequent interactions with the top political hierarchy  including H.E. President of India  Smt. Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi,  External Affairs Minister of India Dr. S. Jaishankar and other dignitaries along with high level interactions with the business/private sector of India especially pertaining to Agriculture, Agro-processing, Health, Pharmaceuticals, Infrastructure, Information Technology and Energy sectors  will provide the necessary impetus for further strengthening bilateral partnership between India and Guyana. In his New Year’s message for 2023, High Commissioner Dr. K J Srinivasa had  called upon  the Guyanese to work for the growth and success of Guyana and to play an active role in fulfilling “Guyana’s unique destiny”.

A Jury-cum-Awards Committee, with Vice-President of India as the Chairman, External Affairs Minister of India as the Vice-Chair and other distinguished members from various walks of life considered the nominations for the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards, 2023 and unanimously selected the awardees. The awardees represent the excellence achieved by the Indian  Diaspora in various fields.

Following is the list of Awardees recommended by Jury-cum-Awards Committee for conferment of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award 2023:

Name	Country	Field
1. Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali	Guyana	Politics/Community Welfare
2. Prof. Jagadish Chennupati	Australia	Science & Technology/Education
3. Prof. Sanjeev Mehta	Bhutan	Education
4. Prof. Dilip Loundo	Brazil	Art & Culture/Education
5. Dr. Alexander Maliakel John	Brunei Darussalam	Medicines
6. Dr. Vaikuntam Iyer Lakshmanan	Canada	Community Welfare
7. Mr. Joginder Singh Nijjar	Croatia	Art & Culture/Education
8. Prof. Ramjee Prasad	Denmark	Information Technology
9. Dr. Kannan Ambalam	Ethiopia	Community Welfare
10. Dr. Amal Kumar Mukhopadhyay	Germany	Community Welfare/Medicine
11. Ms. Reena Vinod Pushkarna	Israel	Business/Community Welfare
12. Dr. Maqsooda Sarfi Shiotani	Japan	Education
13. Dr. Rajagopal	Mexico	Education
14. Mr. Amit Kailash Chandra Lath	Poland	Business/Community Welfare
15. Mr. Parmanand Sukhumal Daswani	Republic of Congo	Community Welfare
16. Mr. Piyush Gupta	Singapore	Business
17. Mr. Mohanlal Hira	South Africa	Community Welfare
18. Mr. Sanjaykumar Shivabhai Patel	South Sudan	Business/Community Welfare
19. Mr. Sivakumar Nadesan	Sri Lanka	Community Welfare
20. Dr. Dewanchandrebhose Sharman	Suriname	Community Welfare
21. Dr. Archana Sharma	Switzerland	Science & Technology
22. Justice Frank Arthur Seepersad	Trinidad & Tobago	Community Welfare/Education
23. Mr. Siddharth Balachandran	UAE	Business/Community Welfare
24. Mr. Chandrakant Babubhai Patel	UK	Media
25. Dr. Darshan Singh Dhaliwal	USA	Business/Community Welfare
26. Mr. Rajesh Subramaniam	USA	Business
27. Mr. Ashok Kumar Tiwary	Uzbekistan	Business