Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be conferred the Lata Deenanath Mangeshkar Award in Mumbai on Sunday. Awarded by the Master Deenanath Mangeshkar Smruti Pratishthan Charitable Trust, the honour was announced in memory of the late Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar.
In a tweet on Saturday, Modi wrote, “Tomorrow evening, I will be in Mumbai where I will receive the 1st Lata Deenanath Mangeshkar Award. I am grateful and humbled by this honour associated with Lata Didi. She always dreamt of a strong and prosperous India and contributed to nation building”.
The organisation had said in a statement that the award will be given every year to an individual “who has made path-breaking, spectacular and exemplary contributions to our nation, its people and our society,” according to NDTV.
“He is an international statesman who has put India on the path of global leadership. The spectacular progress that has and is taking place in every aspect and dimension in our beloved nation is driven and inspired by him. He is indeed one of the greagreatest leaders our great nation has seen in its glorious history of thousands of years,” the statement added about Modi, as reported by the Deccan Herald.
The PM will attend the presentation ceremony which will be hosted by Harish Bhimani.
Apart from Modi, Indian classical music singer Rahul Deshpande, and actors Asha Parekh and Jackie Shroff will also be honoured. Deshpande, Parekh, and Shroff will receive the Master Deenanath Mangeshkar Award for their contribution to music and cinema, respectively.
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Mangeshkar, fondly known as the ‘Nightingale of India’, died of COVID in February, at the age of 92. She was first admitted to the hospital on January 8, after testing positive for the virus. Although she showed some signs of improvement at first, her condition worsened and she succumbed to multiple organ failure on February 6.
In a career spanning over seven decades, the singer had recorded several songs for over a thousand Hindi films, besides other languages including Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.
Known as the ‘Melody Queen of India‘, Mangeshkar received the Padma Bhushan in 1969, followed by the Dadasaheb Phalke award in 1989 for her contributions to Indian cinema, and the Padma Vibhushan in 1999. She was also bestowed the Bharat Ratna, the ‘highest civilian honour’ in India, in 2001 and later went on to receive the ‘Legion of Honour’ award, from the Government of France.