Veer Savarkar Support Fund For Students Established At NY College

India-West News Desk

NEW YORK, NY – Anant Honkan, a distinguished alumnus of The City College of New York and Professor Emeritus of Engineering at Georgia State University, has created the Veer Savarkar Legacy Student Support Fund to help financially needy students pursuing engineering at CCNY’s Grove School of Engineering.

Honkan said the scholarship reflects the influence Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had on his life. He credited Savarkar’s poetry, writings, Marathi plays and resilience during years of imprisonment with shaping his sense of duty and purpose.

“I found not just knowledge but a moral awakening, an inner call that stays with me even while living far from India, here in the United States,” Honkan said.

Honkan said he hopes the initiative will not only ease students’ financial challenges but also encourage future recipients to draw inspiration from a life marked by courage, resilience and an unwavering commitment to freedom and justice.

The fund will award scholarships of $1,000 each year to undergraduate and graduate students for education-related expenses. Preference will be given to students in the mechanical engineering department, although the awards may be extended to students from other departments within the Grove School of Engineering if no eligible mechanical engineering students qualify.

Honkan received a master’s degree in computer science from CCNY’s Grove School of Engineering in 1987 and later earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Before retiring, he spent more than three decades at Georgia Perimeter College, where he developed engineering courses.