India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Memorial awards About a dozen Public Sector Enterprises of India, including the State Trading Corporation of India (New Delhi), HL Life Care Limited (Thiruvanantpuram), NHDC (Bhopal), Securities and Exchange Printing Construction Corporation Limited, Container Corporation of India (New Delhi), PEC Limited (New Delhi), Drazing Corporation of India (Vishakhapattanam), India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited (New Delhi), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (Bangalore) and National Seeds Corporation (New Delhi) have instituted various annual awards in the memory of the great scholar and Hindi patriarch. An award by the name of Dr. Shankar Dayal Singh Jan Bhasha Samman (डा० शंकर दयाल सिंह जन भाषा सम्मान) has been instituted in his memory by the Shankar Sanskriti Pratishan. The first award was presented to International Hindi Association of the USA by Honorable Speaker, Lok Sabha Smt. Meira Kumar in a function held at New Delhi on 27 December 2012. The second and third Dr. Shankar Dayal Singh Jan Bhasha Samman was presented to Dr. Ashok Chakradhar and Balendu Sharma Dadhich respectively. Early life He was born in Bhawanipur village of Aurangabad, Bihar into a Rajput family to Sri Kamta Prasad Singh 'Kam'. He lost his mother at a very early age and was brought up by his grandmother and paternal aunts. He was a brilliant student of exceptional merit right from his early childhood. Father His father Sri Kamta Prasad Singh 'Kam' was a freedom fighter and was close to Shri Sri Krishna Sinha, the first Chief Minister of Bihar. He himself was a writer of extraordinary merit and authored more than a dozen books. He was also a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) in Bihar. Education Singh got his primary education at home and went on to study at the Rajghat Besant School in Benaras. He received his B.A. degree from the Banaras Hindu University, followed by M.A. degree from the Patna University. Later, he was awarded D.Litt. by the Vikramshila University. Career Singh was a prolific writer and a published author of over 30 books. His memoirs and travelogues found place in almost all the esteemed periodicals of the times, such as the Dharam Yug, Saptahik Hindustan, Kadambini, Dinmaan, Ravivaar etc. besides various news papers like the Nav Bharat Times, Hindustan, Lokmat Samachar, Jansatta, Dainik Jagran, Prabhat Khabar etc. He was also the editor of Mukta Kantha, a literary Hindi magazine. He founded Parijat Prakashan