Bhubaneswar, Jan 8: Social activist, Gandhian-philanthropist and President of ‘Utkal Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi’ Krishna Mohanty will be conferred with National Mahatma Gandhi Award for the year 2023.
She will receive the award, which includes a certificate and Rs 1 lakh cash, during the upcoming national session of Sarva Seva Sangh in Jaipur, National President of the association, Chandan Pal, said in a press release on Monday.
Krishna comes is the daughter of Gandhian scholar and thinker and former Chief Minister of Odisha Nabakrushna Choudhury and ace social activist and member of the Constituent Assembly of India, Malati Devi Choudhury. When her entire family and her elder sister went put behind bars for ‘Banar-sena’ activities, Mahatma Gandhi asked Aasha Devi Sorkar to take 5-year old Krishna, to Sevagram Ashram. She had then joined the Mahatma Gandhi’s national movements during his morning walks and started her primary education in Marathi.
Working since 1996 towards the development of Baji Rout Chhatravas in Angul, formed by her mother, and the Utkal Navajeevan Mandal, a voluntary organisation, Krishna has taken up many social issues and has organised several campaigns to improve conditions of women and children in the rural areas of the region basically the under-privileged girls. She also used to teach children of migrant labourers when in Delhi for some time with her husband, Nehru Literacy Award winner Prof Bibhuti Bhushan Mohanty.
The 84-year-old mother is currently staying at the Baji Rout Chhatravas in Angul who is nurturing thousands of tribal boys and girls from remote districts with free education, art of livelihood and social care.
