Odisha’s distinguished researcher Dr. Mahendra Kumar Mishra receives Padma Shri Award

New Delhi: Odisha’s distinguished researcher and litterateur Dr. Mahendra Kumar Mishra received Padma Shri Award from President Droupadi Murmu today.

Mishra received the fourth-highest civilian award from the President at the Civil Investiture Ceremony-I held at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Among the dignitaries present on the occasion were Vice President of India, Prime Minister of India and Union Minister for Home Affairs.

Meanwhile, Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi congratulated Mahendra Kumar Mishra for getting the prestigious award and brining immense pride and honour for the entire state.

“Heartfelt congratulations and greetings to the distinguished researcher and litterateur of Odisha, Dr. Mahendra Kumar Mishra, who received the Padma Shri Award for the year 2026 from the Hon’ble President at the special ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi,” Majhi wrote on his X post.

“This unique recognition received for his contributions in the fields of literature and education is a matter of immense pride and honor for the entire state. Praying at the feet of Mahaprabhu Sri Jagannath for his healthy, disease-free life and continued progress,” he added.

A small gist on who is Dr. Mahendra Kumar Mishra:

Mahendra Kumar Mishra is a linguist, folklorist and educationist who has dedicated more than four decades to preserving endangered tribal voices while embedding them in modem pedagogy, earning global acclaim for voicing the Indian knowledge system embedded in tribal and rural population of India. He has promoted many tribal organisations and youths for promotion of tribal language, culture and education for tribal development.
Born on 1 April,1952, in a tribal district Kalahandi, Dr. Mishra pursued his studies in st Sambalpur University and received the degree of PhD in 1987. He joined as Assistant Director in Directorate of Elementary Education in Government of Odisha and served as the State Coordinator for Education of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes in which he focussed on Tribal Multilingual Education.
Mishra’s cornerstone contribution lies in multilingual education (MLE), where he has invigorated tribal language and culture as tools for learning. Leading initiatives at the state government of Odisha, he spearheaded MLE programs in 21 tribal languages (1996-2012), further expanding to Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Assam through Language and Learning Foundation, New Delhi. His transformative teacher training program ‘Rupantar’ equips educators to deliver primary education in mother tongues, fostering schoolcommunity linkages that integrate local knowledge. These efforts, aligned with, UNESCO, NCERT and NEP 2020, bridge cultural gaps, boosting literacy and retention in tribal schools— as detailed in his book Erai Erai: Multilingual Education in Tribal Schools of India (2023).
As an enthusiastic scholar of tribal oral traditions, Dr. Mishra has preserved rich folklore through seminal works like Oral Epics of Kalahandi (2007), Saora Tales and Songs (2005), Paharia Oral Tradition (2021), and Ramkatha in Oral Tradition of Odisha (2025). He has translated global epics like Finland’s into Odia. His efforts safeguard cosmology, myths, oral epics, and Kalevala songs from Odisha’s tribes—Gond, Santali, Kondh, Paharia, Saora, Banjara and others—infusing them into curricula of primary education to higher education to make education culturally resonant. He is the member of Language Development Board, Centre of Tribal Oral Literature, and Committee for translation of Constitution of India in scheduled languages, in Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi.
Internationally, Dr. Mishra has advised Nepal’s MLE policy, lectured at China’s CASS; Hanyang University, South Korea; Thailand’s Mahidol University, and Russia’s Academy of Sciences, and collaborated with UNESCO in Bangladesh representing the culture of India. Through Sahitya Akademi affiliations, he ensures safeguarding of non-scheduled languages and oral tradition.
Mishra has been honoured with several awards which includes the UNESCO’s International Mother Language Award in 2023 (first Indian to get this award); Veer Shankar Shah Raghunath Shah Award (2009) from Madhya Pradesh; the Kalevala Award (2002) from Finland and the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award (1999).