TN govt honours ISRO chairman with Dr A P J Abdul Kalam award

Chennai: ISRO Chairman K Sivan was on Thursday honoured with the Tamil Nadu government's Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Award by Chief Minister K Palaniswami.

The award was earlier announced in recognition of Sivan's stellar work in the promotion of science and technology.

Sivan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, was originally scheduled to receive the award here during the Independence Day celebrations on August 15, but could not do so.

The government had earlier said Sivan would receive the award from Palaniswami on a later date.

Accordingly, the ISRO chief met Palaniswami at the Secretariat here, where the the chief minister presented him with the award, which carries an eightg gram gold medal, Rs five lakh in cash and a citation.

The Kalam award is to honour those who work for promoting scientific growth, humanities and students' welfare and the awardees should hail from Tamil Nadu.

Under Sivan's tutelage, ISRO had successfully launched Chandrayaan 2, the second mission to the moon on July 22 and he was the chief architect of SITARA, a 6D trajectory simulation software, according to the citation, which also hailed him as "Rocket Man".

The 62-year-old Sivan was the first graduate in his family who got a Bachelor's degree in engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology in 1980.

Completing his Master's degree in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, he later joined ISRO and was a recipient of several awards including the Dr Vikram Sarabhai Research Award (1999).

Following the death of former President A P J Abdul Kalam in 2015, late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had then announced an award in his name.