MUMBAI: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the architect of the Brahmos missile Dr A Sivathanu Pillai, heroes of Operation Sindoor and the city’s dabbawallahs will be felicitated with this year’s Kanchi Seer SIES National Eminence Awards. The ceremony will take place at Shanmukhananda Hall in Sion on Sat Dec 13.The awards will be presented as part of the Kanchi Mahaswami festival.The 28th SIES Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswati National Eminence Award for 2025 will be given to the Assam CM for “public leadership, job creation and land reform”. Besides, Dr Pillai, founder MD and CEO of BrahMos Aerospace, whose missile was reportedly used in Operation Sindoor, and Dr Prahlada Ramarao, first project director, Akash Missiles, will both be awarded for science and technology. The city’s dabbawallahs will be honoured for community leadership and Dr Mani Dravid Sastrigal for Social Leadership and Philosophy.The awards carry a cash prize of Rs 2.5 lakh each. They are instituted in memory of Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi, the 68th Sankaracharya of Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam in Tamil Nadu.Thereafter the Kanchi Sri Jayendra Saraswati National Eminence Award in Fine Arts will be given to Thrissur brothers Srikrishna Mohan and Ram Kumar Mohan on the following day, and the Sri Shanmukhananda National Eminence Award to music veterans KJ Yesudas and TV Gopalakrishnan on Dec 20.Since inception, the awards have been given to 113 persons of exceptional merit.
