AWARDS DECEMBER 2012

 AWARDS DECEMBER 2012

• The General Council of Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi on 21 December 2012 declared N. Rajam, T.H. Vinayakram and Ratan Thiyam as the three eminent personalities in the field of Arts, as Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellows (Akademi Ratna). At present, there exist only 40 fellows of the Sangeet Natak Akademi. Thirty Six persons from field of Music, Theater, Puppetry and Dance were also elected for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) 2012. Nine eminent artists are from the field of Music and they are Mysore M. Nagaraja, (Violin) and K.V. Prasad (Mridangam) for Carnatic Instrumental Music, Sabir Khan (Tabla) and Bahauddin Dagar (Rudra Veena) for Hindustani Instrumental Music, O.S. Thyagarajan for Carnatic Vocal Music, Rajashekhar Mansur and Ajay Pohankar for Hindustani Vocal Music, Illayaraja for Creative and Experimental Musicand Bhai Balbir Singh Ragi (Gurbani) for other major traditions of music.Nine Artists were also selected for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards in the field of Dance and they are Vijay Shankar (Kathak), Priyadarsini Govind (Bharatanatyam), Vedantam Ramalinga Sastry (Kuchipudi), Painkulam Damodara Chakyar (Kutiyattam), Vazhengada Vijayan (Kathakali),Sharmila Biswas (Odissi), Jai Narayan Samal (Chhau), Jwala Prasad (Music for Dance) and Aditi Mangaldas (Creative & Experimental Dance). Eight artists from the Theatre world were also selected for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2012 namely Tripurari Sharma and Waman Kendre for Direction, Arjun Deo Charan for Playwriting, Parvesh Sethi, Murari Roychoudhury for Theatre Music, Nirmal Rishi and Purisai Kannappa Sambandan for Acting and Ghulam Rasool Bhagat for Major Traditions of Theatre (Bhand Pather).Eight more artists were selected for making the contributions in other folk/traditional/dance/tribal music/ theatre and puppetry for the Akademi Awards.Nandini Ramani and Arun Kakade would be awarded with the Akademi Award 2012 for their Overall Contribution/Scholarship in Performing Arts.The Akademi Award has been conferred on people since 1952 and the Akademi Fellow honour has been conferred since 1954.
  
• Renowned Oriya novelist, Pratibha Ray on 27 December 2012 selected for the prestigious Jnanpith award for the year 2011for her contribution to the field of Indian literature. Pratibha Ray is the first Oriya woman and fourth Oriya writer to get the coveted award. Earlier Gopinath Mohanty (1973), Sachidananda Routray (1986) and Sitakant Mohapatra (1993) were conferred the honour.The award carries a cash prize of 7 lakh rupees, a citation and a bronze statuette of Godess Saraswati. Ray's Shilapadma in 1983 won her the Orissa Sahitya Academy Award, 1985, while Yajnaseni (1984) got her the Moorti Devi Award in 1991 and Sarala Award in 1990. Ray has 20 novels, 24 short stories, 10 travelogues, two poetry collections and a number of essays to her credit.
  
• Emirati poet Shihab Ghanem became the first Emirati and Arab to win the Tagore Peace Prize.Tagore Peace Prize is instituted by the Indian government to commemorate the birth anniversary of India’s poet, philosopher and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.Ghanem was awarded the accolade in recognition of his creative literary and translation works, both in Arabic and English, and for promoting human understanding and values of love and peace Tagore had advocated.The award is given to one person every two years. Ghanem was chosen due to the promotion of the human values of love and peace via his poetic works. Ghanem had written 31 Arabic poems and 36 English poems and had published 45 books mainly in Arabic verse.
  
• Booker-nominated Jeet Thayil and Bengali novelist Subrata Mukhopadhyaya were among 24 authors selected for this year's(2012) Sahitya Akademi Awards, which was dominated by poets. Twelve of the 24 awards went to works of poets, which included K Sachitandandan (Malayalam - 'Marannu Vacha Vazhikal'), late Bal Krishna 'Bhaura' (Dogri - 'Tim-Tim Karde Tare') and Makhan Lal Kanwal (Kashmiri - 'Yath Aangnaz Manz'). Thayil, whose novel 'Narcopolis' was shortlisted for Booker Prize, was selected for his poetry collection 'These Errors are Correct' in English category. The Akademi said 12 books of poetry, six short story collections, four novels and one each of autobiography and criticism were selected for the awards this year, two of them posthumously. Among the poets, other winners are Guneswar Musahary (Bodo -- Boro Khonthai), Chandrakant Devtale (Hindi -- Pathar Fenk Raha Hoon), H S Shivaprakash (Kannada -- Mabbina Haage Kabniveyassi), Kashinath Shamba Lolienkar (Konkani -- Kavyasutra) and Darsan Buttar (Punjabi -- Maha Kambani). Aaidan Singh Bhatti (Rajasthani -- Aankh Hinye Ra Hariyal Sapana), Ramji Thakkura (Sanskrit - Laghupadhyaprhbandhatrayi) and Krishna Kumar Toor (Urdu -- Ghurfa-I-Ghalib) are the other poets who were selected for the award. Assamese writer Chandana Goswami was selected for her novel 'Patkair Ioare More Desh' while Mukhopadhyaya was selected for his fiction 'Birasan'. Other novelists are Jodha C Sanasam (Manipuri -- Mathou Kanba DNA) and D Selvaraj (Tamil -- Thol). In Gujarati, Chandrakant Topiwala's critical study 'Gujarati Sakshibhasya' was selected for the award while in Maithili Shefalika Verma's autobiography 'Kist-Kist Jeewan' won the award. Six short story collections also won the award. Jayant Pawar's Marathi collection 'Phoenixchya Rakhetun Uthala Mor', Uday Thulung's Ekantvas (Nepali), Gourahari Das's Kanta O' Anyanya Galpa (Odia), Gangadhar Hansda's Banchaw Akan Goj Hor (Santali), Late Indra Vaswani's Miteea Khaan Miteea Taaeen (Sindi) andPeddibhotla Subbaramaiah Peddibhotia Subbaramaiah Kathalu Vol 1 (Telugu) were the winners in this category. 
• Organisers of the Recording Academy announced on 13 December 2012 that Pandit Ravi Shankar, the sitar maestro would be honoured with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously. Pandit Ravi Shankar would become first Indian to receive the prestigious award. The award would be presented at 55th Grammy Awards ceremony on 10 February 2013 in Los Angeles. Pandit Ravi Shankar is a three-time Grammy Award winner.Apart from Pandit Ravi Shankar, others who would be receiving the lifetime achievement Grammy award are Temptations, Carole King, Patti Page, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Glenn Gould and Charlie Haden.
  
• Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has received the BrandLaureate Legendary Awardon 13 december, for his contribution to the Hindi film industry, and for being India's foremost brand ambassador in Malaysia.The BrandLaureate Legendary Award has been earlier given to the likes of former South African president Nelson Mandela, Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus, Indian businessman Ratan Tata, late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Facebook CEO Marck Zuckerburg and F1 ace Michael Schumacher.The 47-year-old was in Malaysia to attend the birthday party of Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad. The actor was honoured by the Asia Pacific Brands Foundation, and received the award from Robert Loh, founder of Lord's Tailor, KK Johan, president, The BrandLaureate, and Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad.
  
• Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has been selected for the K Karunakaran Foundation award for excellence in administration. The award, instituted in memory of veteran Congress leader and former Kerala Chief minister K Karunakaran, carries Rs 1 lakh and citation. The award would be presented to Chidambaram by Vice- President Hamid Ansari at the Constitution Club in New Delhi on December 13.
  
• Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) was conferred the prestigious Web Ratna 2012, Golden Icon Award for Innovative use of Technology. The DAVP Website (http:/davp.nic.in/) has enabled a complete change from the manual mode to the online mode where the media plans are made and released for the end users. The website with several user friendly features is the only advertising agency in the country which releases its designs, Release orders, payments online. The Project was headed by A P Frank Noronha, DG, DAVP.The Kerala Chief Minister's website (www.keralacm.gov.in) has bagged the Icon of Excellence Web Ratna gold medal award .P T Chacko, Press Secretary to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, received the award from Communication and IT Minister Kapil Sibal.The award was given to honour the initiatives taken by Oomen Chandy to leverage the use of ICT to seek the active participation of the public in the process of governance, says the reportBihar received the Silver Icon Web Ratna Award 2012 for its public grievance redressal website. The Web Ratna awards, constituted by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, acknowledges exemplary initiatives/practices in the realm of e-governance. In order to promote more innovative e-governance initiatives, the Web Ratna Awards have been instituted under the ambit of the National Portal of India.
  
• Renowned film actress and Bharatanatyam exponent Hema Malini has been selected for the prestigious Bharat Muni Sammanthis year for outstanding contribution to the field of art and culture.Named after the author of Natyashastra Bharat Muni, the award has been instituted by organisation Kalingayana Touryatrikam.The award is to be presented to Hema Malini for her contribution towards promotion of Indian arts and entertainment on December 18, the concluding day of the three-day Bharat Muni Festival scheduled to be held in Bhubaneswar.Hema Malini, 64, will be the fifth recipient of the award. The earlier recipients are Thankamani Kutty, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Pandit Jasraj and Ratan Thiyam.
  
• The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, presented the 11 National Energy Conservation Awards – 2012 to Indian Railways, the highest ever by any Indian industry, for the remarkable achievements by its Zonal Railways in Energy Conservation initiatives during the year 2012, at a function in New Delhi on 14 december.In order to intensify the energy conservation initiatives, Ministry of Power has instituted “National Energy Conservation Award” which is given on National Energy Conservation Day on December 14 every year. These awards are given to 11 major category (like Railways, hospitals, office buildings, industry, power plant etc.) covering 35 different subsectors of large and medium scale industries mainly on the basis of improvement in specific energy and energy conservation initiatives. Chairman, Railway Board, Vinay Mittal, Member Electrical, Kul Bhushan and other Railway officials were present among others on the occasion.Awards for the above including Railways category are decided by ‘Award Evaluation Committee’ under Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) based on approved evaluation criteria.
  
• Two $3,000,000 special physics prizes have been awarded to Stephen Hawking and to seven scientists who led the effort to discover a Higgs-like particle at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation, backed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced the awards on 11 December, saying that Hawking is honored for his discovery of Hawking radiation from black holes “and his deep contributions to quantum gravity and quantum aspects of the early universe,” and that the prize money for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, is being shared among a scientist who administered the building of the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider and six physicists who directed two teams of 3,000 scientists each.The $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize is awarded annually by the nonprofit Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation to recognize “transformative advances in the field.” The Foundation said the seven were being honored “for their leadership role in the scientific endeavor that led to the discovery of the new Higgs-like particle by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.” They will share the $3 million prize equally.
  
• Noted classical singers Rajan and Sajan Mishra have been conferred on 15 december,with the prestigious National Tansen Samman for 2011-12. The award, which carries Rs 2 lakh in cash and a citation, was presented to the vocalist-brothers by Gwalior Mayor Samiksha Gupta at the Tansen Samaroh . Speaking on the occasion, Rajan said though he was a recipient of Padma Bhushan, the country's third highest civilian award, it was a big honour to get the Tansen Samman as it is considered a prestigious prize in the the music world. The Tansen Samaroh is being organised from December 14 to 17 by the Madhyapradesh State Government's Ustad Alauddin Khan Sangeet Evam Kala Akademi and Madhya Pradesh Sanskriti Parishad. Rajan-Sajan's father Hanuman Prasad Mishra is one of the past recipients of the Madhya Pradesh Government-sponsored award.
  
• Mo Yan awarded 2012 Nobel Prize for literature
  Chinese writer Mo Yan was awarded 2012 Nobel Prize for literature at Stockholm Concert Hall 10 December. The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony for 2012 started with the Swedish royal anthem "The King's Song." Mo Yan, dressed in black tailcoat, went slowly up to his seat on the stage with the other Nobel Prize winners. Marcus Storch, chairman of the Board of Nobel Foundation first addressed the ceremony and welcomed the winners for attending the ceremony in Sweden. King of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf awarded Mo Yan the Nobel diploma, medal and a document confirming the prize amount after a representative of the Nobel Prize jury in literature introduced the achievement of Mo Yan in literature. Thereafter, the orchestra presented a part of the "Aladdin Suite" called "Chinese Dance". 2012 Nobel Prize laureates in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, Medicine and Economics also received their awards from the King. Since 1901, the Nobel Prizes have been traditionally presented to the laureates Dec 10, the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel.
  
• Rcognising the role it played in promoting India as a tourism destination, especially Puducherry and Munnar (Kerala), the film Life of Pi has been given two awards by the tourism ministry. Announcing the awards on 1 december, tourism minister Chiranjeevi said these would be given Ang Lee, director of the film Life of Pi and Yann Martel, writer of the Booker prize winning book of the same name. The minister expressed hope that this will go a long way in encouraging film producers from abroad to shoot films in India. Every year, the ministry recognises various stakeholders, including film makers and writers for their contribution in promoting India tourism by conferring the national tourism awards.The ministry has identified 'film tourism' as a niche tourism product and has requested state governments and union territory administrations to recognise the potential of film tourism and constitute special bodies/cells to facilitate filming in their respective states/union territories.In February this year, the ministry had signed a MoU with ministry of information & broadcasting as a major initiative to promote the 'Incredible India' campaign and had made Indian cinema a sub brand of the campaign at various international film festivals.
  
• President of India Pranab Mukherjee will give away awards for cooperative excellence on 8 december. National Cooperative Development Corporation has been conferring “NCDC Award for Cooperative Excellence” once every two years since 2002 to the best Primary Society from each State/UT. The award consists of Rs.50,000/- as cash prize, trophy and a certificate of citation. In addition, from this year onwards, NCDC has also instituted three National Level Awards for Primary Cooperative Societies, one each from cooperatively developed States, cooperatively under-developed States and cooperatively least developed States. The National Award consists of Rs.1.00 lakh as cash prize, trophy and a certificate of citation. National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) is a statutory Corporation set up under an Act of Parliament in 1963 to plan, promote and finance programmes through cooperatives for the production, processing, marketing, storage, export and import of agricultural produce and other notified services. This year’s recipients of National Level Awards are Dakhin Rampur Gaon Panchayat Samabay Samity Ltd., Distt. Kamrup, Assam under Cooperatively Least Developed States category; Mulukanoor Women’s Cooperative Dairy Vishwandapuri, Distt. Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh under Cooperatively Under-developed States category; and Samarth Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana Ltd., Ankushnagar, Distt. Jalna, Maharashtra under Cooperatively Developed States category. Besides these, 24 other cooperatives from different states of the country are the winners of State Level Awards.
  
• Seven men and women and six organisations were honoured with the 12 th NCPEDP-Shell Helen Keller Awards 2012 on 2 December, for their contributions towards improving the lives of disabled persons or serving as role models and a source of inspiration for everyone. The International Day of People with Disability is celebrated on December 3. Among the winners in the category for “Role Model Disabled Persons” were Abdul Sajeed Ali, president, Chaitanya Vikulangula Hakkula Vedika;Ketan Kothari, Regional Programme Development Advisor, Social Inclusion, Sight Savers (Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind); Radhika Chand, assistant, Art and Craft Department for Special Section, Vasant Valley School; and Sangeeta Gala, chairperson, National Foundation of Deaf Women.Abdul Sajeed Ali was awarded for his efforts to ensure that the Andhra Pradesh government provided employment for the disabled under the 100-days' job guarantee scheme. Ketan Kothari is credited with ushering in systemic changes to help visually-impaired people have access to the printed word. Radhika Chand, a person with Down Syndrome is an artist and school teacher. Sangeeta Gala, who is hearing-impaired, is an associate director to filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
  
• The awardees in the category of “Role Model Supporters” were Ishita Sanyal, Founder and Director, Turning Point, for promoting employment of mentally-ill people, and R. Hari, General Manager (Human Resources), for making his company, Lemon Tree Hotels Pvt. Ltd, an inclusive workplace. This category of awards is given to non-disabled persons from within the disability sector or outside who have contributed substantially to the cause of promoting employment opportunities for disabled people over an extended period of time.
  
• Five organisations have been awarded the “Role Model Companies/ NGOs/ Institutions” category award. They are Aegis Ltd., EuroAble (An Eureka Forbes Initiative), Lemon Tree Hotels Pvt. Ltd., Sun ITES Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Wipro Ltd. These five organisations have been credited with sharing the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People’s vision on disabled rights and “through their policies and practices demonstrated their belief in equal rights and gainful employment for persons with disabilities”. Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd. has been awarded a special mention in this category.The awards, instituted in 1999, were presented by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid.