AWARDS JUNE 2015

AWARDS JUNE 2015

• Prataprao Pawar:President Pranab Mukharjee on 26th June conferred Punyabhushan Award on Prataprao Pawar, Chairman of Sakal Media Group (SMG) at a function held at Balgandharva Auditorium in Pune. The award is given to noted Puneites by Punyabhushan Foundation in recognition of their contributions in various fields on national and international level.
  
• Vishwanath Tripathi: Noted Hindi writer Dr Vishwanath Tripathi has been selected for 28th Moortidevi award for the year 2014 for his work Vyomkesh Darvesh. The Moortidevi Award Selection Board meeting was held today in New Delhi. Dr M Veerappa Moily chaired the meet. Vyomkesh Darvesh is the fictional biography of noted Hindi critic Acharya Hazariparasad Dwivedi, the doyen of Hindi languages.
  
  The book explores the nuances of Dwivedi’s struggle, his philosophy, myth embedded in his life in a unique style. Dr. Tripathi’s creation has made its mark in the entire genre of fictional biography. It will be a lesson to the students of language in years to come. The award consists of a Saraswati Statue, a citation Plaque and Cash award of four lakh rupees.
  
• Queen, Haider triumphant at IIFA awards:
  The 16th IIFA awards took place in Kuala Lumpur on 7th June. Movies Queen and Haider received much awaited prestigious awards for their work in the field of entertainment. Vikas Bahl’s directorial Queen bagged the Best Picture, Best Story and Best Performance in a Leading Role.
  
  ‘Haider’, the Shahid-Shraddha-Kapoor-starring, Kashmir-set drama took home three honors.
  
  Tabu’s powerful portrayal of Shahid’s mother in the film won her the best supporting actress award while Kay Kay Menon’s role of a shrewd politician in the same bagged him the trophy for the best actor in a negative role
  
  Rajkumar Hirani, won the best director gong for Aamir Khan starrer highly acclaimed ‘PK’, a satire on god-men. Deepika Padukone, who was nominated in the best actress category for her stint as a dance teacher in multi-starrer film ‘Happy New Year’, took home the woman of the year award.
  
  Bollywood’s showman Subhash Ghai was honoured with the prestigious award ‘Outstanding contribution to Indian cinema’. Heropanti stars Tiger Shroff and Kirti Sanon took home the best debut male and female category respectively.
  
  The best debut director gong was shared by Omung Kumar (‘Mary Kom’) and Sajid Nadiadwala for ‘Kick’. Varun Dhawan won the best actor in a comic role award for his stint as a casanova in ‘Main Tera Hero’, directed by his father David Dhawan. The star studded night had powerfull performances from actors like Hritik Roshan, Shahid Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Anushka Sharma, Parineeti Chopra and others
  
• NY museum to honour Mani Ratnam
   A prestigious museum in New York will honour acclaimed Indian director Mani Ratnam with a special tribute, which it said has been "long overdue" for the "important filmmaker". Popular director will attend the ceremony at the Museum of the Moving Image for the tribute which will showcase three of his acclaimed films Roja, Bombay and Dil Se.The ceremony is scheduled to take place from July 31 to August 2.
  
• Gautam Banerjee:
  An Indian-origin businessman, Gautam Banerjee has been honoured for his commendable public service in Singapore. Gautam Banerjee, senior managing director at Blackstone and co-chairman of its Asia operating committee, as well as chairman of Blackstone Singapore, was awarded the prestigious Public Service Medal by President Tony Tan Keng Yam on 30th May
  
  Once nominated a member of parliament in Singapore, Banerjee currently serves on the board of Singapore Airlines Limited, the Indian Hotels Company Limited and is the vice chairman of the Singapore Business Federation.He is also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA).
  
• Vajpayee
  Bangladesh is set to honour former Prime Minister AtalBihari Vajpayee for his outstanding support for the country's independence from Pakistan in 1971 when he was a LokSabha member.
  
  From the very beginning of the Liberation War (in 1971), Vajpayee took a firm stand in favour of Bangladesh's independence
  
  Then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first foreign friend to be conferred with the 'Bangladesh Liberation War Honour Award'. Most of the subsequent recipients were also from India which extended the most crucial support for Bangladesh's independence with incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee being one of them.Bangladesh decided to honour the 1971 "foreign friends" soon after the ruling Awami League was elected to power in 2008.
  
• Askwar Hilonga
  A water filter which absorbs anything from copper and fluoride to bacteria, viruses and pesticides has won a prestigious African innovation prize. Its inventor, Tanzanian chemical engineer Askwar Hilonga, uses nano technology and sand to clean water.
  
  He said that his invention should help the 70 per cent of households in Tanzania that do not have clean drinking water. The prize, worth 25,000 ponds, was the first of its kind from the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering.
  
• Snowden
  Former US security contractor Edward Snowden has been awarded a Norwegian prize for freedom of expression on 2nd June and received yet another invitation to leave his exile and receive the award in person. The Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression said the 31 year old fugitive had won the Bjornson Prize, named after a Norwegian Nobel literature laureate, for his work protecting privacy and for shining a critical light on US surveillance of its citizens and others. Snowden was awarded Sweden's Right Livelihood Award in 2014 but chose to accept it by video link rather than leaving his exile in Russia. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the second year in a row.