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R-Day: Four French nationalists conferred with Padma Shri
The awardees include yoga teachers Charlotte Chopin and Kiran Vyas, Sanskrit professor and scholar Pierre Sylvain Filliozat and Indologist Fred Negrit
New Delhi: The Centre has announced that it would confer the Padma Shri, its fourth-highest civilian award, to four French nationals amidst French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to India as the chief guest of the 75th Republic Day, officials said.
The awardees include yoga teachers Charlotte Chopin and Kiran Vyas, Sanskrit professor and scholar Pierre Sylvain Filliozat and Indologist Fred Negrit.
The government on Thursday unveiled a list of 132 individuals for the Padma Awards. Four people from France, the highest for any foreign country, have received the Padma awards this year.
100-year-old Chopin is said to have brought the yoga revolution to France when she began teaching in 1982. Till today, she continues to teach, and despite her old age, she is said to have achieved remarkable fitness. She began practising yoga at the age of 50.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is also a promoter of Yoga, last year had visited her during his France tour. During the meeting. Modi had lauded Chopin’s deep faith in yoga and her ground-breaking work in its promotion in France.
Vyas, 79, is a philosopher and founder of the Tapovan Open University of Yoga and Ayurveda in Paris. An Indian origin, he chose to settle in France to make Ayurveda “science of life” known in Europe.
Filliozat, 87, has been immersed since childhood in the atmosphere of Indian and particularly Sanskrit studies. In 1959 he obtained a diploma in Hindi. Subsequently, from 1967 until today, he has been the director of Sanskrit studies at the Practical School of Advanced Studies. On 25 March, former President Pranab Mukherjee presented him the “Letter of Recognition for Skill in Sanskrit Letters and erudition in Science”, in recognition of his work on Sanskrit language and literature.
The fourth recipient of the highest civilian award, Negrit, is an Indologist fostering great awareness and appreciation of Indian culture. He is commended for his accomplishments in literature and education.
