Shri K C
Pandey honoured with
“Pride of
India” award by US Consul-General
New
Delhi
30.05.08
Shri
K C Pandey, noted mineral collector and founder of
‘Gargoti’, India’s only international-class museum
of its kind devoted to collection, display and promotion
of India’s mineral heritage at Nasik, was on Friday,
May 30th 2008, presented with “Pride of
India” award by the Mr. Peter Kaestner Consul-General,
Embassy of United States in India.
The
award instituted by “Indo-American Friends Group”
was presented at a gala ceremony held at India
International Centre, New Delhi in the presence of very
distinguished gathering including Parliamentarians,
ministers, diplomats, bureaucrats, academicians,
artists, business professionals and national media.
Lavishing
high praise on Shri Pandey for his contribution in
creating awareness, preservation, collection, and
popularising Indian minerals around the world, Mr
Kaestner said that due to single-minded devotion to the
cause of popularising Indian mineral heritage, variety
and richness of Indian mineral is today well known
around the world, specially US. In fact, he added that
Mr Pandey has become a by-word for prized Indian mineral
among mineral connoisseurs in the US.
Elated
at being felicitated as the “Pride of India” Shri
Pandey, however, lamented that while world around us are
aware of our unique mineral heritage and is spending
millions to collect rare samples of various Indian
minerals like “Apophyliite, Stilbite, Scolecite,
Mesolite, Natrolite, Powellite, Okenite, Prehnite,
Gyrolite, Cavansite, Aragonite, Babingtonite, Calcite,
Chabazite, Epi-stilbite, Fluorite, Goosecreekite,
Heulandite, Julgoldite, Mordenite, Thomsonite,
Yugawarlite etc” Indians and Indian government largely
remained ignorant about our own heritage and not much
was being done to preserve or popularise our own
treasure.
About Shri K C
Pandey:
A former Indian navy engineer, Mr Pandey took premature
retirement to work for preservation, collection and
awareness about India’s mineral heritage. His love and
dedication for the subject found its bearing when he
created “Gargoti”, India’s only museum dedicated
to mineral heritage. This museum is today counted among
the best in the world and has collection of minerals,
some absolutely rare and unique not only from around the
world but also rock samples from Mars and Moon! This
museum has the best collection of Zeolite found in the
Deccan Trap and its collections have been on display in
prestigious museums like Houston Museum, Carnegie
Museum, Smithsonian Museum & the British Museum,
London.
About
Indo-American Friends Group: Founded eight years ago by illustrious people such as diplomats,
academicians, business promoters, artist, and media
professionals, Indo-American Friends Group is a very
distinguished body which works for promoting and
fostering friendly ties between India and the US through
multi level activities including people-to-people
contact.
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