Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation

49 years serving as an inspiration to mankind by applauding outstanding achievements

36 Annual Awards, 4425 Awardees, 1 Vision

Honouring service of permanent value rendered to society

Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation (MMCF) has over the years, been committed to nurturing centres of excellence in heritage management, fine arts, the performing arts, education, ecological management, hospitality, philanthropy, spirituality and sports. Unique in having conceived of, and actualized the practices of 'living heritage', the MMCF is sharing ancient legacies through broad-based and sustainable platforms of development within Rajasthan, in India and through global outreach programmes. Over the last four decades, its activities and endeavours have resulted in employment generation, stemming the rural migration to urban areas and instilling greater pride in traditional professions and craftspeople. This approach to holistic and comprehensive development by the Foundation has been acknowledged internationally, most importantly receiving the prestigious WT Award in 2012 at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, for its 'contribution to universal culture'.

Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation pursues its mission of nurturing cultural values in society by adopting innovative methods of communicating and impacting.

Amongst the most important of these is providing recognition of excellence, through appreciation and acknowledgement of achievement through existing pursuits.

This year, Maharana Mewar Foundation 36th Annual Award Distribution Ceremony - 2018 was held on Sunday the 11th March 2018 at The Manek Chowk, The City Palace, Udaipur. The distribution ceremony started with the presentation of certificates to students from schools and universities in Udaipur and across the State of Rajasthan. That was

followed by the main Ceremony when the international and national awardees gather on the dais to receive their awards from Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar of Udaipur, Chairman and Managing Trustee of Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation, Udaipur. The chief guest of the ceremony was Rashtrakavi Shri Balkavi Bairagi ji.

The international award, instituted in 1996 and named after Colonel James Tod to honour a foreign national who has made a lasting contribution through his work of permanent value and understanding of the spirit and values of Mewar was awarded to Professor John Stratton Hawley, USA. Professor John is Claire Tow Professor of Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University. He has written or edited some twenty books on Hinduism, India's bhakti traditions, and the comparative study of religion. Professor Hawley's recent work on the beautifully illustrated Maharana Amar Singh II (r.1698 - 1710 CE) Sursagar, painted in the royal atelier at Mewar, lies at the heart of a new hundred-page-long chapter that appears in the revised, expanded edition of his thematic study Surdas: Poet, Singer, Saint.

The National annual award, Haldighati Award was given to Ms. Suhasini Haidar who is the Diplomatic Editor of The Hindu, one of India's oldest and most respected National dailies (www.thehindu.com).

Hakim Khan Sur Award was awarded to Dr. E. Sreedharan, 'The Metro Man', in recognition of his distinguished service of permanent value to society for providing transport links to millions throughout India.

Maharana Udai Singh Award awarded to Mr. Gafarbhai Qureshi, farmer from Ramdechi, Talala, Gir Somnath District of Gujarat.

Panna Dhai Award was awarded to Mr. Salim Gafur Sheikh and Mr. Harsh Desai.

Maharishi Harit Rashi Award was awarded to Pandit (Dr.) Chandrakant Purohit (Munshi) and Dr. Sandeep Joshi

Maharana Mewar Award was given to Ms. Raspreet Sidhu, Prof. Satyavrat Shastri and Mr. Aabid Surti.

Maharana Kumbha Award was awarded to Mr. Dev Kishan Rajpurohit

Maharana Sajjan Singh Award was awarded to Mr. Abhishek Joshi

Dagar Gharana Award was awarded to Shri Prashant Mallick and Shri Nishant Mallick

Ms. Vardi Bai received Rana Punja Award.