Our Bureau
London
Britain’s King Charles III has elevated a set of top royal honors, elevating senior British Indian medic Lord Ajay Kumar Kakkar and musician Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber as his new Knight Companions of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.
Lord Kakkar, 59, has been chosen for one of the country’s oldest ceremonial orders in the gift of the British monarch to honor outstanding public service and achievement, made without prime ministerial advice as is the case with other annual royal honors.
“Ajay Kumar Kakkar, Baron Kakkar of Loxbeare, studied medicine at King’s College London before receiving his PhD from Imperial College London, and has focused his medical career on the prevention and treatment of venous and arterial thromboembolic disease, and cancer associated thrombosis,” reads a citation issued with the announcement by Buckingham Palace.
“Lord Kakkar is the president of Thrombosis Research Institute, chairman of King’s Health Partners and chairman of The King’s Fund, a charitable healthcare organization of which His Majesty (King Charles), when Prince of Wales, served as president. He is also the chairman of the Royal Commission for the 1851 Great Exhibition and of UK Biobank,” it notes.
Kakkar was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for services to healthcare and public service by the Late Queen Elizabeth II.
Since last year, Kakkar has been Chancellor of the University of Lincoln and is also an Emeritus Professor of Surgery at University College London. He was also Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1992, served as Chair of the House of Lords Appointments Commission (2013-2018) and the Judicial Appointments Commission (2016-2022).
