A Khasi Department professor at North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Badaplin War, has been awarded with the Padma Shri by the government of India and is the sole winner from the state this year.
The awards were announced by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs today but are given out on the occasion of Republic Day annually. There are 107 Padma Shri awards this year, along with 17 of the higher Padma Bhushans and four of the highest Padma Vibhushans.
Prof War joined the Department of Khasi, NEHU as Lecturer in 1983. She was promoted to Reader in 1996 and as Professor in 2001. She taught Linguistic Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology, NEHU (1994-1996). She taught General Linguistics, Morphology, Semantics in the Department of Linguistics, NEHU (1996-1998).
Further, Prof. War taught two courses – Transformational Grammar and Language Policy in India in the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Shillong Regional Centre in 1995 and 2003.
A member of the Khasi Authors’ Society, Prof. War has written nine Khasi books and several research papers on Khasi language and linguistics.
Prof. War is also a member of the Main Committee set up by the Meghalaya government to look into the matters for inclusion of the Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India.
She holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of London.
Meanwhile, one of the Padma Bhushan awardees is the actor Victor Banerjee, who has a strong Shillong connection, having done his schooling at St Edmund’s.
