Sachin Tendulkar conferred with Fellowship Award in UK

London: India’s cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar plans to support charities and various initiatives to help the under-privileged people in the second innings of his life.

Tendulkar, 44, made the remarks here while receiving the Fellowship Award at the 7th annual Asian Awards last night. He said playing for India for 24 years was a memorable journey and winning the world cup was icing on the cake.

Now in the second chapter of his life he plans to support charities and various initiatives to help the under-privileged people. Providing solar lights to poor people in India was one of them, Tendulkar said.

He called on the stage 8-year-old Hollywood star Sunny Pawar and said, “when I was his age, my dream was to play cricket for India.” Hollywood child actor Pawar earlier won the Rising Star award for his role in the film ‘Lion’.

The ceremony, which celebrates excellence in the global Asian community, also paid tribute to Indian actor Om Puri. The award for outstanding achievement in Cinema was posthumously conferred on Om Puri who died earlier this year at the age of 66.

India’s playback singer Adnan Sami won the award for ‘Outstanding achievement in Music.’ Other award recipients were Krishnan Guru-Murthy (Outstanding Achievement in Television), Ajay Banga (Business Leader of the Year), Masayoshi Son (Entrepreneur of the year), Nisha Dutt (Social Entrepreneur of the year), Dr Jack Preger (Philanthropist of the year), Ding Punhui (Outstanding achievement in sport), Demis Hassabis (Outstanding achievement in Science and Technology) and Sir Harpal Kumar (Outstanding contribution to the community).