Padma Shri Award to Rajen (exclusive pictures)

Rajen receiving the Padma Shree Award
from President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

In January of this year I blogged the great news of our cousin being awarded the Padma Shree. I am now able to give you the exclusive pictures of the event as they were sent to me directly by Rajen.

The President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, conferred on Mammen Mathew (Kandathil, Stephanian, commonly known to all of us as Rajen, Rajenchayan) the PADMA SHREE Award.

This important news was announced on Republic Day at New Delhi.

Rajen studied journalism on the job at Bristol in Wales and then in the USA. In 2002 he received the rare honour of being appointed as a Reuters Trustee, the first Indian to be appointed to this position. He has been the Chairman of the Indian Section of the Commonwealth Press Union, President of the Indian Newspaper Society, and the Editors Guild of India, and has also been on the Press Council of India.

Today, he is the guiding spirit of the Malayala Manorama Newspapers Group, India's most outstanding newspaper and magazine publishing centre, founded by our greatgranduncle, Kandathil Varghese Mappillai, given shape by our grandfather K. C. Mammen Mappillai and then guided in turn by the late K. M. Cherian and then K. M. Mathew, till Rajen took the helm. 

Rajen and his family, wife (Prema) on his left, 

son (Jayant) behind him, father (K. M. Mathew) on his right, and daughter-in-law (Miriam) on the far right. Sachinanda Murthy who heads t Delhi operations of Malayala Manorama and The WEEK is in the top left.

Rajen's daughter-in-law, Miriam (Anu) Mathew (née Paul) was a leading executive in a US bank till she returned to India to take the helm of Manorama Online. Her husband Jayant, is also in the newspaper business.

The other Award Winners in our family:

1. The late Mr. K. M. Cherian (Chetpetappachen) - first awarded the Padma Shree and the later he was given the Padma Bhushan. 

2. Mr. K. M. Philip (Peelukuttychayan, Pappa) was given the Padma Shree three years ago ago. 

3. Mr. K. M. Mathew (Mathukuttychayan, Rajen's father) was given the Padma Bhushan, nearly a decade ago. 

4. The late Mr. K. M. Mammen Mappillai (Kochappachen), received the Padma Shree half a decade before he died in 2003. 

Mr. K. M. Mathulla, founder of H.M.T. (Hindustan Machine Tools - India's largest producer of machine tools) and a die hard Kandathil, got a Padma Shree some 20 years ago.