The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee called up Jesuit Father Felix Raj today who is in New York to address the Alumni of St. Xavier's and requested him to return by May 20 to receive the  State's highest award, BANGA BIBHUSAN. The WB Government decided on Thursday, May 15 in a Cabinet meeting to confer the prestigious award on Father Felix Raj in recognition of his enormous contribution to education. The award will be conferred on May 20th at a public State function in the Science City auditorium, Kolkata.
Father Raj thanked the Chief Minister over the phone for her Government's recognition and appreciation of Jesuits' work in West Bengal and expressed to her that he was unworthy of such an award.
Father Felix Raj is the Principal of St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.

INDIA : Mamata Banerjee lays the Foundation Stone to St. Xavier's New campus (The Telegraph via CNUA) The Chief Minister of West Bengal along with the Archbishop of Calcutta, Thomas D'Souza, Jesuit Provincial and the Principal of the College, Father Felix Raj, laid the foundation for the second campus of St. Xavier's College and the proposed Unversity of St. Xavier's Kolkata.

The gift of a blue Alumni blazer on the occasion turned Mamata Banerjee into someone she "never got the opportunity" to become as a student of Xavier's: a Xaverian. "We never got the opportunity to study in a good school or college. So what? We have worked hard and come up to where we are. I still managed to work my way through Calcutta University, law college and BEd. But I feel for it (the need for quality education)," the chief minister said with characteristic candour at the second campus at Rajarhat, New Town.