PUNE: Senior citizens from Pune, who have made outstanding contributions in various fields, will be felicitated by Sharada Dnyanapeetham on the occasion of Rushipanchami and their 35th anniversary.

Working president and editor of Sharada Dnyanapeetham Pandit Vasant Gadgil said that the award ceremony is to honour senior citizens (above the age of 80), who have contributed to society.

He also announced on Thursday that executive dean of MIT’s School of Government, Rahul V Karad, will be the official convenor henceforth for the organisation along with secretary of Sharada Dnyanapeetham Dr Bhagyalata Pataskar.

Karad said he looked forward to be more actively involved in the organisation’s activities. “This award ceremony is to honour the ethical and moral values imbibed by some of our senior citizens, so that the younger generation can follow them,” he said.

The awards are to be given to Lt Sridhar Gopal Ballal (scientist for national security), Gopinath Yadneshwar Shende (surgeon), Yashwant Balakrishna Umranikar (Hindi propagator), Snehalata Narayan Soman (woman service), Prabhakar Shankar Thakur (agricultural scientist), Shivajirao Giridhar Patil (cooperative sector), Satyasandh Vinayak Barve (religious discourse), Ashok Ramchandra Kelkar (linguistic science – philologist)), Hukmichand Chordiy (industrialist) and Shankarrao Gowarika (scientist).

Besides awards these eminent personalities, journalist Pt Lalji Upadhye will be honoured with a posthumous award. A special honour will be conferred on the editor of the Sanskrit Journal ‘Gunjarav’, Dr Deviprasad Kharwandikar for winning the President’s Award and former Police Commissioner of Pune, Dr Satyapal Singh for his pursuit of Vedic studies.

Mayor Mohan Singh Rajpal will present the awards and Deepak Tilak, Vice-Chancellor of Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, will preside over the function.