New Delhi [India], June 21 (ANI): A Buddhist monk from Ladakh is among the four recipients of the Prime Minister's Award for Outstanding Contribution towards the Development and Promotion of Yoga for the year 2021.

According to the Ministry of Ayush, the Prime Minister's Award for Outstanding Contribution towards the Development and Promotion of Yoga, one of the most coveted honours in the field of Yoga, has been announced for the year 2021.

The winners will be felicitated with a Trophy, Certificate and a Cash Award each. The value of each Cash Award would be Rs 25 lakh.

Bhikkhu Sanghasena from Ladakh's Leh and Marcus Vinicius Rojo from Rodrigues, Sao Paulo, Brazil are the individual recipients of the award while The Divine Life Society from Uttarakhand's Rishikesh and the British Wheel of Yoga from the United Kingdom are two organisations, who will receive the award.

The awards for the Outstanding Contribution towards the Development and Promotion of Yoga was announced by the Prime Minister of India on the occasion of the second International Day of Yoga celebrations at Chandigarh on June 21, 2016.

The Ministry of Ayush developed the guidelines for the said awards. A two-stage selection process through a Screening Committee (for preliminary evaluation) and Evaluation Committee (Jury for final evaluation), is followed in a transparent manner for finalizing the awards.

The nominations for the awards for 2021 were invited through an open advertisement on the MyGov platform. The start date for the same was March 29, 2021, and the end date was May 11, 2021.

The Screening Committee chaired by Secretary (Ayush) drew up a shortlist from the 120 applications received as well as the Committee's own inputs.

The Jury chaired by the Cabinet Secretary examined the recommendations of the Screening Committee, and also made its own analysis of the contributions made by the institutions and individuals shortlisted.

The selection was done after considering nominations received under four different categories, namely International Individual, International Organisation, National Individual and National Organisation. (ANI)