AWARDS JULY 2015

AWARDS JULY 2015

• Neecia Majolly: Bengaluru-based concert pianist Neecia Majolly has won the Global Music Award for her debut single Dark Room. It has won the award in the “Emerging Global Artist” category.
  
  Ms. Majolly’s debut single, which runs for about four minutes, is entwined in classical-electronic-progressive rock, a new-fangled combo that she experimented upon from The Majolly Project. Ashwin Shekhar on percussion and Anish Thomas Panikkar on keyboards assisted her on the project.
  
• Sanjiv Chaturvedi, Anshu Gupta win Magsaysay Award
  Sanjiv Chaturvedi, former Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) at AIIMS and Anshu Gupta, founder of NGO Goonj are among the people who have been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2015.
  
  Sanjiv Chaturvedi is being recognised for his exemplary integrity, courage and tenacity in uncompromisingly exposing and painstakingly investigating corruption in public office.
  
  Anshu Gupta is being recognised for creative vision in transforming the culture of giving in India, his enterprising leadership in treating in cloth as a sustainable development resource for the poor and in reminding the world that true giving always respects and preserves human dignity.
  
  Anshu Gupta founded Goonj in in 1999 after leaving his a corporate job to start the organisation. Goonj is a non-governmental organisation based in Delhi, which works in 21 states across India in disaster relief, humanitarian aid and community development. It has converted 1,000 tonnes of used clothes, household goods and other urban discards into usable resources for the poor.
  
• Ravichandran Ashwin: Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was presented the Arjuna Award on 31st July which was conferred on him last year by the Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. Ashwin was not present during the Award Ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan on August 29, 2014 as he was a part of the India ODI team, which was touring England at that time. The bowler from Tamil Nadu has taken 124 wickets in 25 Tests, 139 in 99 ODIs and 26 wickets in 25 T20 internationals.
  
• Santana, Klein win American Book Awards
  Carlos Santana, Marlon James and Naomi Klein are among the winners of the 36th annual American Book Awards.
  
  Santana and co-authors Ashley Kahn and Hal Miller were cited on 20th July for the memoir The Universal Tone. James won the award for his nearly 700-page novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, based in part on the attempted assassination of Bob Marley.
  
  Klein won for the environmental work This Changes Everything — Capitalism vs. The Climate. Poet Anne Waldman, whose books include The Iovis Trilogy, was honoured for lifetime achievement.
  
  More than a dozen recipients were announced for the awards, which have no individual categories. The awards are presented by the Before Columbus Foundation, a non-profit educational and service organisation founded in 1976 by author-playwright Ishmael Reed.
  
• Gargi Parsai: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25th July presented The Hindu’s senior journalist Gargi Parsai with the prestigious Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) award. Ms. Parsai, an Associate Editor, was conferred the Chaudhury Charan Singh Award for excellence in Journalism in Agricultural Research and Development-2014.
  
• Helena Ndume and Jorge Sampaio: Helena Ndume of Namibia and Jorge Sampaio of Portugal were on 24 July 2015 awarded with the first-ever Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize by the United Nations (UN) at the UN Headquarters in New York. Ndume, a female ophthalmologist, was awarded for treating blindness and eye-related illnesses in Namibia and throughout the developing world. While Sampaio, the former president of Portugal from 1996 to 2006 and also the former mayor of Lisbon from 1989 to 1995, was awarded for his contribution to his country for his struggle for the restoration of democracy in Portugal.
  
• Ramachandra Guha: Historian Ramachandra Guha was on 24 July 2015 chosen for the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize 2015 in the Academic Category. The prize will be conferred upon him on 17 September 2015 in Fukuoka International Congress Center in Japan, following which the awardees will be deliberating lectures at high-schools and universities across the city.
  
• S H Raza:Modern Indian artist Sayed Haider Raza, has been conferred the highest French civilian honour, the Commandeur de la Legion d' Honneur (the Legion of Honour) for his peerless achievements. To mark celebrations of the French National Day, the award was bestowed by ambassador Francois Richier at a function at the French Embassy, New Delhi
  
  The French honour was conferred on the 93-year-old artist in acknowledgment of his "peerless achievements transcending all boundaries". Created in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, the award is given for outstanding service to France, regardless of recipients' nationality.
  
• S Sriram: Former Chairman of the Tata Group and Chairman, Tata Trusts, Ratan Tata, conferred a lifetime achievement award on Prof S Sriram, Founding Executive Director (Emeritus) Great Lakes institute of Management and Founder Director, Cloudcherry, an online customer sentiment mapping tool. The award recognises Prof Sriram’s contribution to management education over the last 25 years.
  
  According to award board, Sriram played major role in making the Institute counted among the top 10 business schools in the country in a short span of just 10 years. He is a great organisational builder and an inspiring teacher. His ability and contribution to help build institutions is immense. Thousands of students have benefited from his stint both at Great Lakes and earlier at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai.
  
• Tata Steel bags Golden Peacock award
   Tata Steel's West Bokaro Division has been awarded the 'Golden Peacock Environment Management Award' for the year 2015. Regarded as a benchmark of corporate excellence worldwide and presented annually under various categories, Golden Peacock Environment Management Award recognition for Tata Steel, underlines the private steel major's responsible environmental practices and resource management while upgrading the skills of employees through training as new technologies evolve.
  
• Sanjeev Galande: Prof. Sanjeev Galande of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune has been selected for G D Birla Award for Scientific Research -2014. Mr. Galande has been selected for his significant contribution in the area of Epigenetics and Molecular Cell Biology. The award carries a cash prize of 2.50 lakh rupees.
  
• Paul Singh: Indian-American professor R Paul Singh has been named as the 2015 Global Confederation for Higher Education Associations for Agriculture and Life Sciences World Agriculture Prize laureate. The award was announced at the annual GCHERA conference, held last week at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh, Lebanon. The award will be formally presented on September 20, during a ceremony at Nanjing Agricultural University, Jiangsu Province, China.
  
  Under a NASA contract, Singh's research group created food-processing equipment for a manned mission to Mars, the university said. He has helped establish and evaluate food-engineering programs at institutions throughout the world, including in Brazil, India, Peru, Portugal and Thailand.
  
• Fazle Hasan Abed: Fazel Hasan abed has got World food prize for creating a non-profit organisation credited with helping more than 150 million people out of poverty. He belongs to Bangladesh. He was named the winner of the 2015 World Food Prize.
  
  Fazle Hasan Abed created BRAC, originally known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, as a temporary relief organization to help with recovery from the 1970 typhoon that killed about 500,000 people and the subsequent war fought in 1971 to win independence from Pakistan. BRAC has grown into one of the world's largest non-governmental organizations focused on alleviating poverty.
  
  It is estimated to have helped more than 150 million people out of poverty in Africa and Asia and is expanding efforts to 10 additional countries.
  
  Abed will be awarded the prize at a ceremony in October. The World Food Prize was created by Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug in 1986 to recognize scientists and others who have improved the quality and availability of food. The foundation that awards the $250,000 prize is based in Iowa.
  
• National Award for Rag-pickers:Government will give national award with a cash prize of Rs 1.5 lakh to three best rag-pickers and three associations for their contribution to keep India clean. Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said this today at an event on waste management in New Delhi.
  
  Stating that rag pickers are helping in handling waste, the Minister pitched for setting up of a credible agency like Delhi Metro Rail Corporation that can guide municipal bodies to take measures to address waste management in a scientific way.
  
  The Minister also mentioned that there are adequate funds for waste management. He expressed concern over the large quantity of untreated waste and sewage in the country and said current rules have been revised to ensure every village of over 5,000 population has a waste treatment plant.