Ekalabya Award goes to Padmini Rout

Asian junior and World under-14 girls’ chess champion Padmini Rout has been selected to receive the 16th Ekalabya Award for the year 2008. The award committee unanimously chose Padmini from among 11 shortlisted candidates in a meeting in Bhubaneswar today. Ekalabya Award was instituted by Indian Metals Public Charitable Trust (IMPaCT), the charitable wing of Ferro Alloys producing company, IMFA Group in 1993. The annaual award carries a cash prize of one lakh rupees and a citation. Besides Woman International Master Padmini, international woman athlete Shrabani Nanda and young rower Rohit Kumar Swain were selected for two runner-up awards, carrying cash prize of Rs 10,000 each and citation. Announcing the names of the award winners IMPact Trustee Baijayant Panda said the award would inspire young talents to perform better in national and international arena. Earlier recepents of Ekalaby Award include athletes Rachita Mistry (Panda), Anuradha Biswal: cricketers Shiv Sundar Das, Debasis Mohanty, Sanjay Raul, Rashmi Ranjan Parida: international hockey players Dilip Tirkey, Lazrus Barla, Probodh Tirkey, Ignace Tirkey, William Xalxo, Gloria Dung Dung, Subhadra Pradhan: rowers Pravasini Dwivedy and Mamata Jena. The awards will be presented at a function, the date of which will be announced later.