AWARDS AUGUST 2015

AWARDS AUGUST 2015

• French President presents country’s highest award to train heroes
  In France, 3 Americans and a Briton who foiled a suspected terror attack on a train have received France's top honour from President Francois Hollande. Mr Hollande presented Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler and Briton Chris Norman with the Legion d'honneur at the Elysee Palace on 24th August. Two other unnamed passengers will receive the honour at a later date. The passengers overpowered a suspected radical Islamist on a high-speed train bound for Paris. French authorities are questioning the suspect, 25-year-old Moroccan Ayoub El-Khazzani.
  
• Kolkata Port: Kolkata Port has been adjudged ‘ Major Port of the Year’ amongst 12 major ports in the country for the year 2014-15 in recognition of its impressive growth rate in volumes, optimizing capacity utilization, growth in output per berth and customer satisfaction . It has been declared in the Gateway Award 2015 programme held at Mumbai recently.
  
  In the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT),Kolkata Dock System and Haldia Dock System under KoPT, together handled 16.834 million tones (MT) of traffic during April to June 2015 which stands against 13.698 MT handled during the corresponding period last year. KPT has achieved traffic growth of 23%, while all other major ports of the country have together recorded a growth of 5.8%.
  
  The major commodities handled by KoPT during this period includes container, vegetable oil, limestone, coking coal, petroleum coke, iron & steel, POL, LPG, other liquid cargo and finished fertilizer. In an effort to attain customer satisfaction, KoPT has inducted state-of-the-art modern equipments, introduced various customized packages and other user-friendly, cost-effective measures.
  
• Dr Modadugu Vijay Gupta: Noted Indian agricultural scientist Dr Modadugu Vijay Gupta will receive the first Sunhak Peace Prize in South Korean Capital Seoul on 28th August. He is joint winner of the prize along with President of Kiribati Islands Anote Tong. Dr. Gupta was also recipient of the World Food Prize in 2005 for development and dissemination of low-cost techniques for freshwater fish farming.
  
  Sunhak Peace Prize was founded by South Korean religious leader Dr Hak Ja Han Moon to recognise eminent individuals who contributed to peace and development of the world. Billed next only to the Nobel Prize in terms of money being awarded to individuals, the Sunhak Peace Prize will be given annually from this year.
  
• Rajendra Singh: The Waterman of India Rajendra Singh on 26 August 2015 was conferred with the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Patron of the Stockholm Water Prize presented the prize at a Royal Award Ceremony during World Water Week in Swedish Capital Stockholm.
  
  Singh was named for the prestigious award for his innovative water restoration efforts, improving water security in rural India, and for showing extraordinary courage and determination in his quest to improve the living conditions for those most in need.
  
• Sania Mirza: Lawn tennis player Sania Mirza has been conferred with country's highest sports honour Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award on 29th August.
  
  President Pranab Mukherjee presented the sports and adventure award to sportspersons for 2015 at a function at Rashtrapati Bhawan on the occasion of National Sports Day.
  
  12 sports persons including shooter Jitu Rai, gymnast Dipa Karmakar, hockey player P R Sreejesh, Wrestler Bajrang, shuttler K. Srikanth, Kabaddi player Abhilasha Mhatre, Para Swimmer Sharath Gayakwad and Archer Sandeep Kumar were given Arjuna Awards for 2015.
  
  Similarly Dronacharya Award was conferred on Coach Anoop Singh for wrestling, Harbans Singh for athletics, Swatantar Raj Singh for boxing, Nihar Ameen for swimming and Naval Singh for athletics - para-sports.
  
  The Dhyan Chand Award for lifetime contribution towards sports was given to Romeo James for Hockey, Shiv Prakash Mishra for Tennis and T.P.P. Nair for Volleyball .
  
  The President also gave the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award to Ms Arunima Sinha, Jot Singh, Wing Commander Paramvir Singh, Retired Lt. Col Satyendra Verma and Retired Col. Satish Chander Sharma for their achievement in the field of adventure activities on land, sea and air.
  
  Besides, Directorate General of Military Training , Haryana Police, Coal India Limited and Sports Coaching Foundation, Hyderabad were given Rashtriya Khel Protsahana Purushkar, for their contribution towards development of sports. Punjabi University, Patiala got the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad trophy for best all round performance in sports.
  
• Piku wins best film award at IFFM 2015
  In Melbourne, on the second day of Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) 2015, the IFFM awards for 2015 for the best film were awarded to"Piku". The best director award went to Shoojit Sircar and Bhumi Pednekar of "Dum Laga Ke Haisha" for the best actress while best actor award was awarded to Irrfan Khan for his performance in "Piku".
  
• Lionel Richie: Popular singer-songwriter Lionel Richie will be honoured as MusiCares Person of the Year at its annual event in Los Angeles on February 13, 2016. The 66-year-old “Truly” hitmaker, who will be honoured for his musical legacy, said he was extremely proud of the recognition and hailed it as “momentous”.
  
• Vijay Singh Thakur: India's High Commissioner to Singapore, Vijay Singh Thakur, has received 'Asian of the Year 2014' award by leading Singapore daily The Straits Times, on behalf of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
  
  PM Modi is expected to visit Singapore in November during which he would sign a strategic partnership agreement between the two countries. The award was instituted in 2012 to recognise a person or organisation that has contributed significantly to either his own nation or Asia.
  
• Babasaheb Purandare: Historian and writer Babasaheb Purandare was on 19 August 2015 awarded with Maharashtra Bhushan Award 2015. He was bestowed this award in literature category by Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao at a function held at Raj Bhavan, Mumbai.
  
• Veerappa Moily: Pranab Mukherjee on 10th August gave away the Saraswati Samman for 2014 to Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister M Veerappa Moily for his Epic Sri Ramayana Mahanveshanam written in Kannada.
  
  Saraswati Samman is given annually by the K K Birla Foundation for an outstanding literary work in 22 Indian languages of the eighth schedule. The award carries a cash prize of ten lakh rupees, a citation and a plaque.
  
• Amity International School, Noida students win NASA’s space settlement competition
  A team of 12 students from Amity International School, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, has given NASA a new design of how to build space cities that can inhabit 24,000 humans. The design won the prestigious Annual International Space Settlement Competition (ISDCC) that was held at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
  
  The students were part of a company “Vulture Aviation”, which had students participating from Latin America, North America, UK and the USA
  
  According to the report, ISDCC has been training industrial skills to high school students, equipping them with skill sets required for aerospace engineers as they are entrusted to design a city in space that can house 10,000 people.
  
• Sania Mirza to get Khel Ratna; Rohit Sharma, 16 others to get Arjuna award
   The prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award for the 2015 will be given to Tennis star Sania Mirza. The announcement was made by Ministry of Sports in New Delhi on 14th August. The Ministry also announced the Arjuna Award for 17 sports persons.
  
  The awardees are Naib Subedar Sandeep Kumar for Archery, M.R. Poovamma(Athletics), Kidambi Srikanth (Badminton), Mandeep Jangra (Boxing), Rohit Sharma (Cricket), Dipa Karmakar(Gymnastics), Sreejesh P.R. (Hockey), Manjeet Chhillar and Abhilasha Shashikant Mhatre (Kabaddi), Sawarn Singh (Rowing), Anup Kumar Yama (Roller Skating), Jitu Rai (Shooting), S. Sathish Kumar (Weightlifting), Bajrang and Babita Kumari (Wrestling), Yumnam Sanathoi Devi for Wushu and Sharath M. Gayakwad for Para-Swimming.
  
  Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awardee will receive medal, certificate and an award money of Rs 7.5 lakh. Arjuna Awardees will receive statuettes, certificates and award money of Rs 5 lakh each.
  
• Valarmathi: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, on Saturday, presented the first APJ Abdul Kalam award to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist N. Valarmathi, who led the team that successfully launched Radar Imaging Satellite RISAT-1 in 2012.
  Daughter of a government employee from Ariyalur, Ms. Valarmathi was presented a certificate, a cheque for Rs. 5 lakh and an eight-gram gold coin at the Independence Day function at Fort St. George. The award was announced by Ms. Jayalalithaa in memory of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who passed away last month.
  
  The RISAT-1 was the pinnacle of her career which has spanned over 30 years. A technologically superior imaging satellite, RISAT-1 had instruments such as the Synthetic Aperture Radar that could look through clouds and take images even during the night.
  
  The Kalpana Chawla award for courage and daring enterprise was awarded to Jothimani from Erode, a lorry driver. A vocation dominated by men, Ms. Jothimani, hailing from Kallipatti village in Gobichettipalayam, said her work involved driving heavy 10-wheeler Lorries for long hours.
  
• NDDB wins award for geographical info system
  The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) on 4th August said it has won the Esri Special Achievement in GIS Award 2015 for exemplary work in Dairy Geographical Information System.
  
  The award ceremony was held recently at the annual Esri International User Conference in San Diego and presided over by Jack Dangermond, President and Founder of Esri.
  
  With the advancement of Internet-based GIS technology, it is now possible to integrate and quickly disseminate the tremendous amount of attribute and graphical data of villages into usable information for decision-making by all stakeholders of the dairy sector.
  
  NDDB’s Internet-based Dairy Geographical Information System (i-DGIS) application is the first of its kind in India, where village-level integration of data has been done, at such a large scale, for the dairy sector.
  
• Honour for three Indian-American startup entrepreneurs
  US President Barack Obama on 5th August honoured three Indian-Americans among other entrepreneurs for their innovative and path-breaking start-ups which have had a major impact on people's lives and creating jobs.
  
  The three innovators honoured by Obama are Privahini Bradoo from San Francisco, Ann Marie Sastry from Michigan and Suma Reddy from New York.
  
  While Bradoo's BlueOak recycles electronics and mobile phones, Sastry has founded a company by the name of Sakti that is using materials science to develop the next generation of solid state lithium batteries that will power mobile phones, computers, and even cars.
  
  Reddy's Waddle is a mobile, friend-to-friend discovery platform to help find the best places to go by using friends' ratings, reviews and recommendations. Obama said start-ups, young firms account for almost 40 per cent of new hires.
  
• Zhanna Nemtsova: Poland has awarded the journalist daughter of slain Russian democracy advocate and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov a 1.1 million dollars human rights prize in recognition of the duo's advocacy. Zhanna Nemtsova accepted the Solidarity award in Warsaw, in ceremonies presided over by President Bronislaw Komorowski and Polish human rights icon Lech Walesa.
  
  Nemtsova, who left Russia after her father's assassination, now works for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle in Berlin.