President to honour Satyarthi, Gulzar at PU convocation

President Pranab Mukherjee will honour six people from various fields, including Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi and Akademi award joint winner lyricist Gulzar, at the 64th annual convocation of Panjab University here on Saturday.

Nobel Peace Prize 2014 winner and child rights' activist Kailash Satyarthi, mathematician and Fields Medal winner (2014) Manjul Bhargava and agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan will be given honorary degrees by Mukherjee, a PU spokesman said on Wednesday.

Lyricist and Bollywood personality Gulzar would be given the PU Sahitya Rattan Award, automobile giant Hero Group founder and chairman Brijmohan Lal Munjal would be honoured with the PU Udyog Rattan Award and ophthalmologist Amod Gupta would be given the PU Vigyan Rattan Award during the convocation.

Panjab University was ranked first in India and 32nd in Asia in the 2014 Times Higher Education Asian University rankings. It was ranked number one university in India and in the bracket 276-300 internationally in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, 2014-2015.

Nearly 700 meritorious students will be conferred degrees and medals at the convocation, the spokesman said.

Tight security measures will be in place in Chandigarh and particularly at the university campus for the presidential visit.

Set up in 1882 and one of the oldest universities in the country, PU's alumni includes former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Inder Kumar Gujral, former president S.D. Sharma, Nobel laureate Hargobind Khurana, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla (who died in the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2001), senior Congress leader Manish Tewari, union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy and former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.