Assembly Speaker M.B. Rajesh has said it is the failure of India’s foreign policy that made 51 countries turn against India in the wake of the controversial statements by former BJP spokespersons.
He was speaking after giving away the 14 th K.P.S. Menon Memorial Award to Badminton Association of India vice chairman S. Muralidharan at Ottappalam on Thursday.
The award was instituted by the Sri Chettur Sankaran Nair Memorial Cultural Trust.
“It was not a question of a slip of the tongue. It was a costly price that we paid for deviating from a foreign policy that India followed for decades,” said Mr. Rajesh. He said the greatness of the foreign policy that India had followed in the post-Independence years could be understood now.
Mr. Rajesh presented Mr. Muralidharan the award comprising a cash prize of ₹50,000, a plaque and a citation.
Trust chairman P.T. Narendra Menon presided over the function. V.K. Sreekandan, MP, Trust secretary E.P. Chitresh Nair, and Chettur Sankaran Nair Literary Wing president N. Pradeep, spoke.
Carnatic vocalist from Andhra Pradesh Vishnubhatla Sriramachandramurthy presented a classical music concert. Vayala Rajendran was on violin, Kallekulangara Unnikrishnan on mridangam, Aluva Gopalakrishnan on ghatom, and Vellinezhi Ramesh, was on the morsing.
It was the first time that a sports personality was given the KPS Menon Award. The previous awardees were K. Jayakumar (2008), T.K.A. Nair (2009), Nirupama Rao (2010), M.A. Yusuff Ali (2011), M. Balamuralikrishna (2012), M.T. Vasudevan Nair (2013), T.J.S. George (2014), K.S. Chitra (2015), P.N.C. Menon (2016), Krishnan Vijayakumar (2017), T.P. Sreenivasan (2018), Gokulam Gopalan (2019), and M. Leelavathy (2020).
