Professor Ralph W. Nicholas, the William Rainey Harper Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, and President of the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS), received the Rabindra Puraskar for 2006 for his book Fruits of Worship: Practical Religion in Bengal. This prize is awarded annually by the Bengali Academy of the West Bengal Government for a book about Bengal not in the Bengali language. The award was presented in the Academy’s Assembly Hall, in the West Bengal Government’s cultural complex, by Professor Surabhi Bandopadhyay, Vice Chancellor of the Netaji Subhas Open University. The Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Prize was established by the West Bengal Government in 1950 to honor India's first Nobel Laureate. Professor Nicholas also currently services as the Council of American Overseas Research Center’s (CAORC) Executive Committee Secretary.