Surat: President Ram Nath Kovind presented Santokba Awards to Nobel prize winner social worker Kailash Satyarthi and retired ISRO scientist A.S. Kiran Kumar. Speaking in the function, President Kovind said little bit deviated from the established tradition of Rashtrapati Bhavan to attend this function. There’s a tradition that President would not go to award functions organized by private companies, the President said adding that,’when I looked at the list of awardees I thought I might choose to go. Later I inquired about who were the organizers. I was told the organizers were good persons, but I was not satisfied. I decided to meet Mr. Dholakia before taking decision whether to go to the award function or not. Shri Dholakia met me last week only, and after meeting him I decided to come to this award function. President Kovind in his speech recalled his visits to Surat in 1970s. He said he would go to railway station early in the morning to get newspaper when halting in Surat. President Kovind described the city of Surat as the city of opportunities. He said there’s a mini-India in Surat.

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