Port Blair, Jan 25: In yet another proud moment for Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Dr. Ajay Kumar Sonkar better known as the ‘Pearl Man’ of A&N Islands is all set to receive the Padma Shri award for his distinguished service and outstanding scientific achievements. Dr. Sonkar has been doing research in the islands for almost two decades now and has to his credit of making ‘black pearl’, which had surprised the world.
Padma Awards - one of the highest civilian Awards of the country, are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. The Awards are given in various disciplines/ fields of activities, viz.- art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc. ‘Padma Vibhushan’ is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; ‘Padma Bhushan’ for distinguished service of high order and ‘Padma Shri’ for distinguished service in any field. The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year.
These awards are conferred by the President of India at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March/ April every year. This year the President has approved conferment of 128 Padma Awards including 2 duo case (in a duo case, the Award is counted as one). The list comprises 4 Padma Vibhushan, 17 Padma Bhushan and 107 Padma Shri Awards. 34 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 10 persons from the category of Foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI and 13 Posthumous awardees.
Dr. Ajai Kumar Sonkar, a renowned Indian scientist, had created a wave on the world stage with all his outstanding scientific achievements. His recent development of pearl making techniques through state-of-the-art tissue culture had surprised the world. The research paper of this phenomenal work of his has been published in all scientific journals and science journals like Aquaculture Europe, Infofish International and World Aquaculture.
By making black pearls in his land of work Andaman & Nicobar, he had attracted the attention of the world's scientific community, the President of that time, Dr. Abdul Kalam, had described Ajai's discovery as a great achievement of the country. Since then, there has been a continuous process of development of all the cutting-edge technologies, one after the other.
During the Corona pandemic, when all the activities in Andaman also came to a standstill, Ajai built a new laboratory of cell biology and tissue culture along with his laboratory in Prayagraj. And the mantle tissues of the oyster Pinctada margaritifera, which produces black pearls from the Andaman Sea was brought live with special technology to his laboratory in Prayagraj, where the historical research work started, thus a wave generating technology was born on the world stage. Ajai developed the technique of pearl formation from tissue culture technique in sea oysters, two thousand miles away from the sea.
For all his achievements in the field, Dr. Ajay Kumar Sonkar is all set to receive Padma Shri award by the Hon’ble President of India on the occasion of Republic Day today.