President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday honoured archaeologist C Govindarajanar with the Tolkappiyar Award for outstanding contribution in the field of Tamil studies. He has identified Kannaki Temple in Tamil Nadu. The award was among the Presidential Awards for Classical Tamil conferred by the President to eminent persons at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The award carries a certificate of honour, a memento and a one-time cash prize of five lakh rupees.

Mr Mukherjee also conferred Kural Pitam Award for 2008-09 to Francois Gros, a French professor who has translated many Tamil classics into French and was Vice President of the International Association of Tamil Research. The award includes a certificate of honour, a memento and a one-time cash prize of five lakh rupees. The President also gave four Young Scholar Award to Dr A Lakshmi Duttai, Dr S Madhavan, Dr M Ramakrishnan and Dr S Sentamizhpavai for showing excellence in Tamil studies. The award carries a certificate of honour and one lakh rupees cash.