President pays tribute to Tagore

President Pranab Mukherjee Thursday paid tribute to litterateur, composer and artist Rabindranath Tagore on the ocassion of his 152nd birth anniversary.

Mukherjee paid floral tributes in front of a portrait of Tagore at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, officials said.

The 1861-born Tagore holds the unique distinction of having authored the national anthems of two sovereign nations -- India and Bangladesh.

The bard's rich, diverse and vast literary output is virtually unmatched in the world. He was also a painter and composer par excellence.

In 1913, Tagore became the first Asian Nobel laureate and the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for literature.