Narendra Modi conferred Russia's highest civilian honour, Order of St Andrew the Apostle, for promoting bilateral ties

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Thursday awarded the ‘Order of St Andrew the Apostle’ by Russia for exceptional services in promoting bilateral ties, a Russian embassy official said. The Order of St Andrew the Apostle is the Russia’s highest civilian honour, the official said. [caption id=“attachment_6196951” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Reuters[/caption] Modi has been conferred with the award for exceptional services in promoting special and privileged strategic partnership between Russia and India, the official said. This comes less than two months after the prime minister was awarded Seoul Peace Prize by the South Korean government in recognition of his service to international cooperation, global growth and human development. In October 2018, Modi received the United Nation’s highest environmental honour, the Champions of the Earth Award, from secretary-general Antonio Guterres for his “unprecedented pledge to eliminate all single-use plastic in India by 2022”. He was among the six winners of the award. The prime minister also received the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award on 14 January, 2019. However, the award was surrounded in a controversy as critics questioned its authenticity. However, Kotler later stated that he took the final decision on giving the award to Modi after a committee in his organisation voted on possible contenders. With inputs from agencies