Nisha Desai Biswal, an Indian-American who is Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs in the United States Department of State, and Priti Patel, a British politician who has been a Member of Parliament for Witham constituency in Essex since 2010, feature prominently in the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2017 awards list.
The awards were announced at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas meet held in Bengaluru.
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas conventions have been held annually since 2003 and have been honouring Pravasis since then.
Among the prominent awardees are: Dr. Gorur Krishna Harinath (Australia) Community Service; Rajasekharan Pillai Valavoor Kizhakkathil (Bahrain) Business; Antwerp Indian Association (Belgium) Community Service; Nazeer Ahamed Mohamed Zackiriah (Brunei) Community Service; Mukund Bhikhubhai Purohit (Canada) Business; Nalinkumar Sumanlal Kothari (Djibouti) Community Service; Vinod Chandra Patel (Fiji) Social Service; Raghunath Marie Antonin Manet (France) Arts & Culture; Dr Lael Anson E Best (Israel) Medical Science; Dr. Sandip Kumar Tagore (Japan) Arts & Culture; Ariful Islam (Libya) Community Service; Tan Sri Dato Dr Muniandy Thambirajah (Malaysia) Education and Community Service; Pravind Kumar Jugnauth (Mauritius) Public Service; Antonio Luis Santos da Costa (Portugal) Public Service; Dr. Raghavan Seetharaman (Qatar) Business Management; Zeenat Musarrat Jafri (Saudi Arabia) Education; Singapore Indian Association (Singapore) Community Service; Dr. Carani Balaraman Sanjeevi (Sweden) Medicine; Susheel Kumar Saraff (Thailand) Business; Winston Chandarbhan Dookeran (Trinidad & Tobago) Public Service; Vasudev Shamdas Shroff (United Arab Emirates) Community Service; India Social and Cultural Centre, Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) Philanthropy and Community Service; Priti Patel (United Kingdom) Public Service; Neena Gill (UK) Public Service; Hari Babu Bindal (USA) Environmental Engineering; Dr Bharat Haridas Barai (USA) Community Service; Nisha Desai Biswal (USA) Public Affairs; Dr. Mahesh Mehta (USA) Community Service; Ramesh Shah (USA) Community Service; and Dr Sampatkumar Shidramapa Shivangi (USA) Community Leadership.