By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Guwahati: Keeping alive its decade long tradition, the Education Research & Development Foundation (ERDF) honoured 14 eminent senior citizens of Assam for their outstanding contributions in different fields of public life.
The eminent citizens who received their ‘Excellence Award 2014’ at the RIST auditorium at the outskirts of Guwahati on Saturday morning were DN Bezbaruah (Journalist), Tayabun Nisha (Athlete), Anil Kumar Goswami (Scientist), Lakhyahira Das (Lyricist & Singer), Isfaqur Rahman Borborah (Social Worker), MH Hazarika (Genetics Engineer), Ashok Kumar Goswami (Sanskrit Scholar), UK Sharma (Educationist), Nirupama Mahanta (Gandhian Activist) and GL Agarwalla (Industrialist and author).
Tayabun Nisha (centre), star athlete of Assam during the post-Independent years, receiving the ERDF Excellence Award ’14 at RIST Auditorium on the outskirts of Guwahati on Saturday morning.
Radhika Mohan Bhagawati (senior journalist and author), Monoranjan Goswami (social worker), DN Buragohain (Academician) and Justice Aftab Hussain Saikia could not attend the function due to preoccupations. Their awards would be handed over later, it was announced.
Earlier, welcoming the dignitaries and guests to the function, Mahbubul Hoque, Chairman ERDF and Chancellor University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya (USTM), said, “The tendency is our society is that senior citizens who toiled all their life to make life better for others are often forgotten after the prime of their life. To reverse this trend, we have started giving the Excellence Awards to outstanding senior citizens of Assam for nearly a decade now. Very soon we are going to extend this programme in Meghalaya also”.
Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University Sudhir Kumar Sopory who was the chief guest on the occasion and gave away the awards, lauded the initiative of ERDF. “We have many lessons to learn from this award ceremony. On one hand, it is an inspiration for the upcoming generation, and on the other it is a declaration of our gratefulness to the senior citizens who gave their best time and energy so that we can live with peace and honour today,” he said.
Talking about ERDF, he added, “Education is the best gift that we can give to people, and ERDF is just doing that and doing it with sincerity and excellence. I will certainly look forward to opportunities in which JNU and ERDF could work together for common good of our people.”
Tayabun Nisha, who brought the first medal for Assam in the first National games after Independence, reminded the students that “Health is wealth and a good student must have good health”. She offered her services for gym training of the students for achieving this goal.
Outstanding senior citizens of Assam who received the ERDF Excellence Award ’14 on Saturday morning are seen with Prof SK Sopory, Vice Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) New Delhi, and Mahbubul Haque, Chairman ERDF at RIST Auditorium on the outskirts of Guwahati.
Sopory was so impressed by the credentials of Tayabun Nisha that he remarked, “I didn’t know that another Mary Kom was there, hiding in Assam. She is indeed a role model for the new generation”.
After the acceptance speech by the awardees, NK Choudhury, Principal Adviser to ERDF; HN Das IAS (retd), former Chief Secretary Assam; and PJ Barua, Executive Editor, The Assam Tribune also addressed the gathering.
In a post lunch programme, SK Sopory participated in an interactive session with the faculty members and students of USTM and Cotton College, Guwahati.