RAMON MAGSAYSAY AWARD - NOBEL PRIZE OF ASIA

 

 

 

 

RAMON MAGSAYSAY AWARD  -  NOBEL PRIZE OF ASIA

 

Ramon Magsaysay Award is given to honor Asia's topmost achievers in any field. This year's, 2023, Magsaysay Award winner is also an Indian Dr. Ravi R. Kannan an oncologist working in Assam rural areas and rest of India, a pro-poor cancer specialist. This is the 65th edition of the Award.

 

Other Indians who won this prestigious Award are Acharya Vinoba Bhave, M.S. Subhalaxmi, R.K. Laxman, Satyajit Ray, Arvind Kejriwal, Mother Teresa, Kiran Bedi, Dr.Varghese Kurian, et al. The Indian winners' list of the Magsaysay Award is given separately at the end of this Blog post.

 

The Ramon Magsaysay Award was instituted in the year 1957 and was first Awards were given in 1958.  The first Award winner was Acharya Vinoba Bhave (1958).

In 1959 Dalai Lama won the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Ramon Magsaysay Award is Asia's Premier Prize and highest honor.

 

The award carries a certificate, a medallion bearing the likeness of the late President, and a cash prize of USD 50,000.00

The Ramon Magsaysay Award (Filipino: Gawad Ramon Magsaysay) is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. The prize was established in April 1957 by the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund based in New York City with the concurrence of the Philippine government. It is often called the "Nobel Prize of Asia".

 

 

In May 1957, seven prominent Filipinos were named to the founding board of trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, the non-profit corporation tasked with implementing the awards program. Later on, the board of trustees diversified and included prominent Asians from all over the Asian continent and outlying islands. The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation gives the prize to Asian individuals achieving excellence in their respective fields.

 

The award is named after Ramon Magsaysay, the seventh president of the Republic of the Philippines after World War II.

 

Ramon Magsaysay was killed in an airplane crash.
 

 

On March 17, 1957, a C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft crashed on the slopes of Mount Manunggal on the island of Cebu in the Philippines. The crash killed 25 of the aircraft's 26 occupants, including the incumbent president of the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay.

 

 

Ramon Magsaysay AKA Ramon del Fierro Magsaysay, born on 31 August 1907 and passed away on 17 March 1957, was the 7th President of the Philippines. His tenure as the president was from 30th December 1953 – to 17th March 1957.

In recognition of his outstanding service as a guerrilla leader during the Pacific War, Magsaysay was appointed Governor of Zambales. After spending two terms as a member of the Liberal Party in the House of Representatives representing the Zambales district, he was appointed Secretary of Defense. He was elected President of the Nacionalista Party he founded. He was the 1st president of the Philippines, born after the Spanish colonial rule, and the first president of the Philippines born in the 20th century.

 

• From 1958 to 2008, the Award was given in six categories annually: Government Service, to recognize outstanding service in the public interest in any branch of government, including the executive, judicial, legislative, or military;
• Public Service, to recognize outstanding service for the public good by a private citizen;
• Community Leadership, to recognize the leadership of a community toward helping the disadvantaged have fuller opportunities and a better life;
• Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, to recognize effective writing, publishing, or photography or the use of radio, television, cinema, or the performing arts as a power for the public good;
• Peace and International Understanding, to recognize contributions to the advancement of friendship, tolerance, peace, and solidarity as the foundations for sustainable development within and across countries; and
• Emergent Leadership, is to recognize an individual, forty years of age or younger, for outstanding work on issues of social change in his or her community, but whose leadership may not yet be broadly recognized outside of this community.
  

 

 

The Award is presented in formal ceremonies in Manila, Philippines on August 31st, the birth anniversary of the much-esteemed Philippines President whose ideals inspired the Award’s creation. This award is given in 6 categories.

These categories are:

1. Government services (GS)

2. Public services (PS)

3. Community leadership(CL)

4. Journalism, literature & creative communication arts (JLCCA)

5. Peace and International Understanding (PIU)

6. Emergent leadership (EL)

 

From the year 2009, The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation has done away with the practice of awarding the award in the above six categories.

 

Starting in 2009, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is no longer being given in fixed Award categories, except for Emergent Leadership. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is presented in formal ceremonies in Manila, Philippines on August 31st, the birth anniversary of the much-esteemed Philippine President whose ideals inspired the Award’s creation in 1957.

 

 

India has won the maximum number of 58 Ramon Magsaysay Awards so far (including this year's winner Dr.Ravi Kannan a few days ago). The Philippines had the second most awardees 49 till now.

 

 

        

 

Dr Ravi Kannan R., India

 

Dr Ravi Kannan R., the first formally trained oncologist in the Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (CCHRC), helped develop the non-profit facility to become the full-fledged, comprehensive treatment center it is known as today. The current CCHRC is home to twenty-eight departments, including but not limited to various aspects of cancer care such as oncology, radiology, tumor registry, etc.

CCHRC, under Kannan’s leadership, aims to become a state-of-the-art cancer centre where no patient, regardless of background or status, will be denied appropriate cancer treatment. The hospital’s mantra revolves around taking care of anyone in need of cancer care, with special emphasis on taking care of families suffering from poverty or grief.

According to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Kannan was selected for this year’s award because of his strong devotion to his medical profession, focusing on what medicine is truly for: pro-health and people-centred treatment. Kannan and his institution have helped millions in India, including locals from Assam, find a reliable and inclusive healthcare facility.

 

 

 While on the subject let us discuss India's highest literary award Jnanpith as well.

Jnanpith Award

Indian literary award

Jnanpith Award, highest literary award in India, given annually for the best creative literary writing to writers in any of the 22 “scheduled languages” recognized in the Indian Constitution. The prize carries a cash award  (INR 11 lakhs), a citation, and a bronze replica of Vagdevi (Saraswati), the goddess of learning. It is sponsored by the cultural organization Bharatiya Jnanpith.

The Jnanpith Award was instituted in 1961, and the first award was given in 1965. Until 1982 it was presented for a specific work; thereafter, it was given for a writer’s overall contribution to literature. Since then, the award has typically been given every year to one author, although in some years it has been jointly offered to two.

Due to paucity of space, I cannot list all the Jnanpith award winners here.  You are requested to do a Google search for Jnanpith Award Winners to know the winners from 1965 to 2022.

 

 

 

List of Indian Recipients of Ramon Magsaysay Award :

Name	Year Awarded	Category
Vinobha Bhave	1958	Community Leadership
Chintaman Deshmukh	1959	Government Services
Amitabha Chowdhury	1961	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Mother Teresa	1962	Peace and International Understanding
Dara Khurody	1963	Community Leadership
Verghese  Kurien	1963	Community Leadership
Tribhuvandas Patel	1963	Community Leadership
Welthy Fisher	1964	Peace and International Understanding
Jayaprakash Narayan	1965	Public Service
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay	1966	Community Leadership
Satyajit Ray	1967	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Moncompu Sambasivan Swaminathan	1971	Community Leadership
M.S. Subbalakshmi	1974	Public Service
Boobli George Verghese	1975	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Henning Holck-Larsen	1976	Peace and International Understanding
Ela Ramesh Bhatt	1977	Community Leadership
Mabelle Arole	1979	Community Leadership
Rajanikant Arole	1979	Community Leadership
Gour Kishore Gosh	1981	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Pramod Karan Sethi	1981	Community Leadership
Chandi Prasad Bhatt	1982	Community Leadership
Manibhai Desai	1982	Public Service
Arun Shourie	1982	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Rasipuram Lakshman	1984	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Muralidhar Amte	1985	Public Service
Lakshmi Chand Jain	1989	Public Service
K.V. Subbanna	1991	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Ravi Shankar	1992	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Banoo Jehangir Coyaji	1993	Public Service
Kiran Bedi	1994	Government Services
Pandurang Athavale	1996	Community leadership
Tirunellai Seshan	1996	Government Services
Maheshweta Devi	1997	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Jockin Arputham	2000	Peace and International Understanding
Aruna Roy	2000	Community Leadership
Rajendra Singh	2001	Community Leadership
Sandeep Pandey	2002	Emergent Leadership
James Michael Lyngdoh	2003	Government Services
Shantha Sinha	2003	Government Services
Lakshminarayan Ramdas	2004	Peace and International Understanding
V. Shantha	2005	Public Service
Arvind Kejriwal	2006	Emergent Leadership
Palagummi Sainath	2007	Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
Mandakini Amte, Mr. Prakash Amte	2008	Community Leadership Community Leadership
Deep Joshi	2009	Community Leadership
Neelima Mishra	2011	Emergent Leadership
Harish Hande	2011	Community Leadership
Kulandei Francis	2012	Emergent Leadership
Anshu Gupta & Sanjiv Chaturvedi	2015	Emergent Leadership
Bezwada Wilson, Thodur Madabusi Krishna	2016	Human rights activist, Carnatic music
Bharat Vatwani, Sonam Wangchuk	2018	Restoring health and dignity to troubled lives Education for community progress
Dr.Ravi R. Kannan	2023	Outstanding service as an oncologist pro-poor medical services field