Fiji's Mahendra Chaudhry chosen for Krishna Menon Award

Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's Indian-origin former prime minister, has been chosen to receive the V K Krishna Menon Award in recognition of his contribution to the Indian diaspora.

The award was announced by the director of V K Krishna Menon Institute Cyriac Maprayil as the institute celebrated the 122nd birth anniversary at the Nehru Centre here recently.

Several dignitaries including Professor Philip Murphy, Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and J P Fernandes, General Secretary of the Indian Young Men's Christian Association in London attended the function.

Chaudhry is the leader of the Fiji Labour Party. The former trade union leader became Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister on May 19, 1999, but exactly one year later he was ousted in a coup.

Chaudhry's ancesters hailed from Rohtak District in Haryana. His paternal grandfather arrived in Fiji in 1902, as an indentured labourer, to work on Fiji's sugarcane plantations.