The Second Annual Function of the PD Tandon Foundation Trust was held at NBRI Auditorium, Lucknow on 8th October, 2022.
The programme started with lamp-lighting and floral tributes to Mr. PD Tandon, by the President and the Secretary of the Foundation along with the helper-associates of Tandon family – Shri Bachan Lal and Shri Sitaram. Mr. Chandra Shekhar Verma conducted the programme. The President and the Secretary welcomed the panellists present, viz. Ms Ruchi Kumar, Mr. Ratan Mani Lal and Mr. Sharat Pradhan. Also present on the occasion was Shri Dhirendra Verma, poet and writer, and son of the eminent litterateur Shri Bhagwati Charan Verma.
The first speaker of the function was Ms. Mina Kala, a family friend, associated with Mr. Tandon for the past more than five decades. She spoke about her reminiscences entitled ‘PD Tandon as I knew him’. After that Vikas Malik took to the podium with his memories of ‘What I imbibed from my grandfather’. This was followed by a short audio-visual introduction about PD Tandon. Thereafter, his grand daughter-in-law, Dr. Nishika Bhatia read out her Impression of PDT’s book ‘Women Who Inspired Me’ from the perspective of a woman, who was four generations younger.
The Foundation had earlier organized a Writing Competition for the Mass Communication students of the city in order to encourage the ‘Student Journalists’. A brief introduction to the concept of Student Journalism was given by Mr. Ratan Mani Lal. This was followed by the distribution of prizes by panellist, Ms. Ruchi Kumar. The Best Student Journalist prize for Rs. 2100/- each, was given to Ms Drishti Vanaik of Amity School of Communications and Mr. Malay Pandey of BBD University, while Ms Vaishali Gautam of Amity and Ms. Nabeela Urooj of BBD got the Consolation Prize.
Mr. Sharat Pradhan spoke about the process of nomination and selection of Outstanding Journalists and how we intend to move ahead in future.
On the recommendation and selection by the panellists, PD Tandon Awards for Outstanding Journalism for 2022 were given to Ms. Shilpi Sen of TV Today Group for Electronic media and Mr. Saurabh Sharma for Digital media. They were awarded a trophy along with a cash reward of Rs. 21,000/- each. The Print media award was shared by Ms Ramanshi Mishra of Dainik Jagran and Ms Yusra Husain, formerly with The Times of India and now working with Bombay Mid-day, who got a trophy along with a cash reward of Rs. 11,000/- each.
In the end, the Secretary Ms Chitra Malik spoke about PD Tandon’s view on education, especially for girls and women.
Outside the auditorium various books written by PD Tandon and his photographs with various personalities were put on display along with five standees. After the programme High Tea was organised outside for the guests.
PD Tandon was a freedom fighter, eminent author and journalist, whose name appears on fifty two books in Hindi and English, of which some were translated into Urdu and Tamil also. During the Quit India Movement of 1942.