Raja Rao Award

The award was instituted by the Samvad India Foundation,[4][8][11] a nonprofit charitable trust named for the Sanskrit word for dialogue, which was co-founded by Makarand Paranjape, a professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and Vijay Mishra, a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Murdoch University in Perth.

Its purpose was to honour writers of Indian origin settled abroad, mainly those in South-East Asia, and to promote education and cultural contributions to India and the South Asian diaspora.

[14][15][16][17] One literary journal reported that "the 2000 Raja Rao Award that Maniam received in New Delhi was a definite boost to his international acclaim as a writer.

), the Order of Australia, and the Samvad India Foundation's Raja Rao Award which acknowledges authors who deal with the South Asian Diaspora in their literary work.

This international prize celebrates writers and scholars who have made an outstanding contribution to the literature of the South Asian diaspora, and the honour delighted Yasmine even as it took her by surprise.