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Itanagar, April 23: Noted educational activist and Padma Shri awardee Sathyanarayanan Mundayoor, popularly known as 'Uncle Moosa' in Arunachal Pradesh, has been selected for the '25th Mahaveer Award for Excellence in Human Endeavour in the field of Education'.
The award is being conferred by Bhagwan Mahaveer Foundation, a Chennai-based public charitable trust involved in social philanthropy. The award carries a cash component of Rs 10 lakh, a memento and a citation.
Mundayoor, the Coordinator of Lohit Youth Library Network, had received the country's fourth highest civilian honour Padma Shri in 2020 for spreading the "joy of reading" in Arunachal Pradesh.
Mundayoor informed that the entire cash award will be utilized to build a corpus for training and creating a cadre of reading volunteers in Arunachal Pradesh. He also assured the Library Network's commitment to continue working to spread the joy of reading and thus contribute to improve the educational standards of rural Arunachal societies, a statement from the Lohit Youth Library Network said.
Besides the education front, the awards are also given for excellence in human endeavour in the fields of Non-violence & Vegetarianism, Medicine & public health, and Community & Social Service.
Thanking the Foundation trustees and the jury who selected the final awardees, the Coordinator said that the entire Lohit Youth Library Network volunteers, mentors, patrons and well-wishers feel it as an award for book lovers and reading enthusiasts on the eve of World Book Day.
Mundayoor feels the award shall also be a great motivation to many more youth to come forward to serve their reading-deprived brothers and sisters in such remote and rural communities, not only in Arunachal but the rest of India.