On Monday night, when President Ram Nath Kovind presented the Padma awards at a civil investiture ceremony in the Darbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan, the loudest applause was reserved for Swami Sivananda, the 125-year-old yoga guru who walked barefoot to receive the Padma Shri -- after prostrating before Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi and President Kovind.
Born on 8 August 1896 in Sylhet district (now in Bangladesh) of undivided India, Swami Sivananda lost his mother and father at the age of six. Due to abject poverty, his beggar parents could feed him mainly boiled rice water during his childhood days.
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