Meet the Ayyanars, a family with multiple prestigious awards for service to the country

Meet the Ayyanars, a family with multiple prestigious awards for devotion to duty in military and police service.

It requires immense hard work and devotion towards duty to be awarded the prestigious ‘Devotion to Duty’ or ‘Gallantry’ award by the Government of India.

The Ayyanars are one such family, where there is not just one awardee, but three, spread over two generations.

Meet Ayyanar Ravi Shankar, the present Additional Director General of Police, CID, who was the first police officer from Andhra Pradesh to receive the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry in 2003.

Dr. Ravi Shankar, after passing out with an MBBS degree from JIPMER, had joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1994.

He also served the United Nations as contingent commander of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Kosovo in 2005.

On the creative side, he was also the first IPS officer from A.P. to receive the Golden Nandi Award for Best Socially Relevant Documentary Film.

His brother, Commodore Ayyanar Muralidhar, who is in the Indian Navy, was also awarded the Nau Sena Medal by the President of India in January 2024 for Devotion to Duty.