Itanagar: Padma Shri awardee Sathyanarayanan Mundayoor aka Uncle Moosa of Arunachal Pradesh has been conferred the ‘DREAMSS 2022 Award’ by the Chennai-based organization ‘Dakshinaa’ for his meritorious social service in promoting ‘knowledge connectivity through the library movement in North Eastern India’, sources said on Tuesday.
The award comprising a plaque, a citation, and a cheque of Rs 50,000 was presented to Mundayoor, who is also the coordinator of the Lohit Youth Library Network, by former West Bengal Governor and former National Security Advisor to the Govt of India, M K Narayanan, in a function at Chennai on Sunday last.
Presenting the award, Narayanan, also a Padma Shri awardee and eminent administrator, lauded the youth library movement in Arunachal Pradesh for adopting the model of youth volunteers leading the reading promotion campaign across villages, rather than waiting for Govt to set up libraries in such places.
“I have traveled right upto the China border in Lohit and Dibang Valleys and I am fully aware of the challenges of promoting education and reading culture in such remote Himalayan communities. The country needs to produce many more such Uncle Moosa’s to strengthen the quality of learning and to build a new enlightened Indian society,” he said.
Thanking the Dakshinaa Trust for the award, Mundayoor said that the Award truly goes to the youth of Arunachal for upholding the importance of the joy of reading during the last 4 decades. He informed that the entire award amount will be utilized for training new volunteer- trainers to continue to take the youth library movement forward in the coming years.
One of the highlights of the function – chaired by educationist and Dakshinaa Chairperson Prof C G Rajendra Babu – was the invocation recital by Wakro (Lohit) sisters Ashapmai Dellang and Behelti Ama, students of Kalakshetra Foundation, Chennai with a Carnatic kirtan composed by Maharaja Swati Thirunaal of Travancore. The audience applauded the young Arunachali girls for beautifully connecting the Southernmost and the Northeastern ends of India through a Carnatic recital.
