AWARDS JUNE 2017

AWARDS JUNE 2017

• Mamata Banerjee : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee received the highest prize in United Nations Public Service Award for the State Government’s Kanyashree Prakalpa (Girl Child) scheme in The Hague, Netherlands.
  
  Kanyashree Prakalpa scheme of West Bengal came first among the 552 project nominations received by the UN from 62 countries. West Bengal has been awarded in the Asia-Pacific group for the category is 'Reaching the Poorest and Most Vulnerable through Inclusive Services and Participation'.
  
  About scheme
  Department of Women Development and Social Welfare, Government of West Bengal (DWD&SW) has designed the Kanyashree Prakalpa - a conditional cash transfer scheme with the aim of improving the status and well being of the girl child in West Bengal by incentivizing schooling of all teenage girls and delaying their marriages until the age of 18, the legal age of marriage. Kanyashree Prakalpa is a West Bengal Government sponsored scheme which will be implemented henceforth in all districts of the State.
  
• Ankit Kawatra: Anti-hunger activist Ankit Kawatra has been awarded the Queen’s Young Leaders Award for 2017 by Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremony in the Buckingham Palace.
  
  The award recognises exceptional work towards solving hunger and malnutrition in India.
  
  Ankit Kawatra is the founder of Feeding India, an organisation which works towards eradicating hunger and food wastage in India. The organisation which was established in 2014 functions across 43 Indian cities with the help of 4,500 volunteers serving 8 million meals to the needy.
  
• Rural Development Ministry gives 144 awards to states under various categories
  The Rural Development Ministry has given away 144 awards under various categories to states and other organisations in a function in New Delhi.
  
  Under the 'Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY)', Bihar was awarded for constructing the highest number of rural roads while Madhya Pradesh got the award for use of non-conventional construction material in constructing roads.
  
  The ministry said in a statement in New Delhi that Haryana, Gujarat and Karnataka received a special prize for completing more than 95 per cent of their targets.
  
  Tripura’s Dhalai and South districts and a gram panchayat were awarded in recognition of effective implementation of national flagship programme- MGNREGA.
  
  District Magistrate of Dhalai district Vikash Singh and District Magistrate of South district CK Jamatia,and Gram Pradhan of Sachindra Nagar Rakhal Das received the respective awards in a programme held in New Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan.
  
  Apart from Tripura, the other States which received awards were Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Sikkim, Karnataka and West Bengal under different categories.
  
• Qatar Airways: Qatar Airways announced as the World's Best Airline at SKYTRAX 2017 World Airline Awards. Skytrax (originally known as Inflight Research Services) is a United Kingdom–based consultancy which runs an airline and airport review and ranking site. The Doha-based carrier won the Best Airline of the year title for the fourth time.
  
• Soumitra Chatterjee: Veteran Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee has been selected for France's highest civilian award, Legion of Honour, for his outstanding contribution to cinema and theatre. 82-year old Chatterjee is the first Bengali actor to be chosen for the award.
  
  The honour comes almost 3 decades after the same recognition was conferred on master director Satyajit Ray in 1987.
  
  French government representatives will go to Kolkata later this year to confer the award.
  
  Chatterjee has acted in several of Ray’s films including ‘Apur Sansar’, ‘Debi’,’ Aranyer Din Ratri’, ‘Ghare Bairey’ and ‘Ganashatru’. Earlier recipients of the Legion of Honour include sitar aestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, Amatabh Bachaan, Shahrukh Khan and Kamal Hasan.
  
  Chatterjee was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2012.
  
• Haraprasad Das conferred with Kalinga Literary Award
  Poet and essayist Haraprasad Das conferred with Kalinga Literary Award for his work and contribution to literature at the fourth edition of Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF).
  
  This year the KLF introduced two new awards namely the Kalinga International Literary Award, Kalinga Karubaki Award.
  
  The Kalinga International Literary Award was received by Anand Neelakantan for his contribution towards literature, and the Kalinga Karubaki Award was given to Paramita Satpathy for her contribution to Odia poetry.
  
• Yeshe Dorjee Thongshi conferred Bhupen Hazarika National Award
  The Fifth Bhupen Hazarika National Award, 2017 has been conferred on eminent writer from Arunachal Pradesh Yeshe Dorjee Thongshi.
  
  The prestigious Award, instituted by Sarhad,a Maharashtra-based organization, is honouring a person every year since 2012, who has rendered an outstanding literary work at national and international level.
  
  The award consists of 51,000 rupees, a memento and a certificate. Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi who belongs to West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh, was graduated from prestigious Cotton College, Guwahati and did his MA from Guwahati University.
  
  He started his literary pursuit from his childhood days. Although his mother tongue is Sherdukpen, he started writing in Assamese because it was then the medium of instruction in schools in North-East Frontier Agency or NEFA.
  
  He has so far written about a dozen novels, and numerous short stories and plays, all in Assamese, a language over which he has a wonderful command. His most important novel is Mauna Onth Mukhar Hriday (Silent lips, murmuring hearts) which won the Sahitya Akademi award in 2005.
  
• David Grossman won the Man Booker International Prize
  Israeli author David Grossman won the Man Booker International Prize for his novel "A Horse Walks Into a Bar".
  
  David Grossman, the first Israeli author to win the Man Booker International Prize. He will share the £50,000 ($64,000) award money with his translator Jessica Cohen. Other important works of David Grossman includes The Yellow Wind, To the End of the Land.
  
• Annabel Mehta: national Social activist Annabel Mehta, a British, has been awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her work and service to the underprivileged. The award will be presented to her at Buckingham Palace in London later this year. She worked for upliftment of underprivileged communities in Mumbai, and the NGO, Apnalaya.
  
  Annabel has been recognised and honoured for over 40 years of service to under-privileged communities in India.
  
• JP Nadda:Union Health Minister J P Nadda was conferred the WHO Director-General's Special Recognition Award for accelerating India's tobacco control initiatives and taking bold measures to protect people against hazards of tobacco use.
  
  The global recognition was presented to Nadda by Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia, at the 'National Consultation on Accelerating Implementation of WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for Achievement of SDGs'.
  
• United Nations warns of Clean Water Shortages by 2050
  United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that by 2050 global demand for fresh water is projected to grow by more than 40%. A Quarter of the world's population will live in countries with a chronic or recurrent lack of clean water.
  
• Satyabrata Rout:
   Satyabrata Rout, professor from the Department of Theatre Arts, S N School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad (UoH) has been awarded Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar for the year 2016.
  
  Rout has developed "a unique method of teaching and practicing direction and design, which has been achieved through a long and continuous work experience with eminent theatre practitioners and scholars''.
  
  The Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar (Akademi Award) is an award given by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama. It is the highest Indian recognition given to practicing artists.
  
• 'The Square' won the Palme d'Or top prize at the Cannes film festival
  Swedish satire "The Square", a send-up of political correctness and the confused identity of the modern male, won the Palme d'Or top prize at the Cannes film festival.
  
  Sofia Coppola became only the second woman in history to win best director for her battle-of-the-sexes thriller "The Beguiled" with Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell.
  
  Kidman, who appeared in four different projects at the French Riviera festival, accepted a special anniversary award from the jury.
  
  Three-time Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix nabbed best actor for his turn as a hammer-wielding hitman in "You Were Never Really Here".