Scientist and Entrepreneur Swati Piramal conferred France's highest civilian award

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The visiting French Minister for Europe & Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna conferred the highest civilian award of France Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) on scientist and entrepreneur Swati Piramal in Mumbai on 16 September 2022.

Earlier in August, 2022 the French government had announced that senior congressman and Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram   Shashi Tharoor has been chosen for the Knight of the Legion of Honour award.

Dr. Swati Piramal who is the Vice Chairperson of the Piramal group was awarded France’s second Highest civilian award Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Merite (Knight of the Order of Merit) in 2006.

She was earlier honoured with Padma Shri by the government of India in 2012.

IMPORTANT FACTS -

Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur :

• The Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight of the National Order of the French Legion of Honour), was started by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.
• It is the highest civilian award given by the French Government to a French national or any country's national for outstanding contribution to the recipient’s field of expertise.
• The Legion has five classes, listed in descending rank: grand cross, grand officer, commander, officer, and knight, or chevalier (unlimited).

Which other Indians have received it :

• The first Indian to be awarded with the Legion of Honour was Maharaja Pratap Singh of Idar in 1918.
• Since then, more than 40 Indians have been honoured with the award. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION -

Some of the famous recipients are : 

• JRD Tata (1983), Satyajit Ray (1987), Pandit Ravi Shankar (2000), Zubin Mehta (2001), E Sreedharan (2005), Amitabh Bachchan (2007), Lata Mangeshkar (2007), Shah Rukh Khan (2014), Kamal Haasan (2016), Ratan Tata (2016), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (2016), and Azim Premji (2018).