AWARDS MARCH 2014

AWARDS MARCH 2014

• Shigeru Ban, Japanese architect known for his creative and inexpensive designs for disaster relief shelters, has won the 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize. The annual award, considered the most prestigious prize in the world of architecture, is given to designers who have “significantly contributed to humanity” and for “excellence in built work.” The prize has recognised for the first time an architect for his contribution to the critical, but often overlooked, area of housing disaster victims. Architectural awards in general favour designers who construct monumental, novel and expensive buildings. Shigeru Ban, 56, started his involvement in disaster relief structures in 1994 in Rwanda. In 1995, he set up a non-governmental organisation, Voluntary Architects’ Network, for taking up work in Sri Lanka, India, Haiti, Italy and New Zealand .The jury, which included Ratan Tata who has studied architecture, said Mr. Ban’s works “strive for appropriate products and systems that are in concert with the environment and the specific context, using renewable and locally produced materials.” The prize, instituted by Hyatt Foundation, carries $100,000 grant, a citation and a bronze medallion. Mr. Ban would be the seventh Japanese architect to receive the prize when it is given away on June 13 in Amsterdam.
  
• Gyan Correa, the debutant director of Gujarati movie 'The Good Road', has been selected for the Gollapudi Srinivas National Award 2013. The film was selected from 20 nominations across many languages including Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu and Kannada, a press release from the Gollapudi Srinivas Memorial Foundation told on 16 March in Hyderabad. The award has been instituted in memory of Late Gollapudi Srinivasa, who died while directing his first film Prema Pustakam (Book of Love) in 1992. 'The Good Road' is the first ever Gujarati film selected to represent India at the Oscars. Besides, it has bagged the Best Gujarati film award at the 60th National Film Award. The award would be presented to the winners on August 12, the day on which Srinivas passed away.
  
• The prestigious G D Birla award for scientific research for 2013 has been given to Rajesh Gopakumar(46), a theoretical physicist at the Harish Chandra Research Institute in Allahabad. Gopakumar has been awarded for his contribution in the Quantum Field Theory and String Theory. The G D Birla award for scientific research was instituted in 1991 by K K Birla Foundation to recognise significant scientific research undertaken by Indian scientists below the age of 50, working in India. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 1.5 lakh and a citation. He is a recipient of several other awards, including B M Birla Science prize in 2004.
  
• Indian journalist and founder of CGnet Swara, a mobile news service, has won the 2014 Freedom of Expression Award. The award, organised by the UK-based Index on Censorship, was conferred on Shubhranshu Choudhary for the service that allows tribal’s in remote parts of India to receive and share news in the local language. More than 100 citizen journalists trained by Choudhary produce audio news reports that are hosted on a website, giving them a global reach. Index on Censorship - an international organisation that promotes freedom of expression and challenging censorship - gave the awards on 20 March, in London. Choudhary was selected in a public vote for the 'Digital Freedom' award contended by former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden; TAILS (The Incognoto Amnesiac Live Operating System), an open-source encryption tool that can help protect the free online communication of journalists and sources in any country; and China's Free Weibo - an uncensored version of China’s biggest social network, SinaWeibo. CGNet Swara, a mobile-based news service developed with the help of Microsoft Research India, helps the Tribals of central India's Chhattisgarh state to tell their version of stories, in their language (Gondi), which Choudhary said is often ignored by the mainstream media. Choudhary's CGNet Swara is rooted in sensitive tribal areas in Chhattisgarh from where Maoists insurgents have been fighting the Indian state in a civil war for more than 40 years.
  
• Famous poets Javed Akhtar (Urdu), Subodh Sarkar (Bengali) and Ambika Dutt (Rajasthani) were among the literary giants who were felicitated by the Sahitya Akademi at the ongoing annual “Festival of Letters” in New Delhi on 11 March.Novelists Mridula Garg (Hindi), Manmohan (Punjabi) and R.N. Joe D’ Cruz (Tamil) were among those who accepted the awards from the Sahitya Akademi president Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari. The award winners included Rabindra Sarkar (Assamese), Anil Boro (Bodo), Sita Ram Sapolia (Dogri), Temsula Ao (English), Chinu Modi (Gujarati), C.N. Ramachandran (Kannada), Mohi-ud-Din Reshi (Kashmiri), Tukaram Ram Shet (Konkani), Sureshwar Jha (Maithili), M. N. Paloor (Malayalam), Makhonmani Mongsaba (Manipuri) and Satish Kalsekar (Marathi).
  
• Czech priest and intellectual Tomas Halik has won the 2014 Templeton Prize, the John Templeton Foundation announced on 13 March. The 65-year-old Roman Catholic scholar has scooped the £1.1 million prize, which honours a living person who has made “an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.”
  
• Hollywood stars participated at the Dolby Theatre on 2 March as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this year's Oscars winners.
  The award winners are:
  Best picture -"12 Years a Slave”
  Actor in a leading role -Matthew McConaughey - "Dallas Buyers Club"
  Actor in a supporting role Jared Leto - "Dallas Buyers Club"
  Actress in a leading role -Cate Blanchett - "Blue Jasmine"
  Actress in a supporting role -Lupita Nyong'o - "12 Years a Slave"
  Directing -Alfonso Cuaron - "Gravity"
  Writing (adapted screenplay)" -"12 Years A Slave" - John Ridley
  Writing (original screenplay) -"Her" - Spike Jonze
  Animated feature film -"Frozen"
  Documentary (feature) -"20 Feet From Stardom"
  Music (original song) -"Let it Go" - "Frozen" - Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
  Music (original score) -"Gravity" Steven Price
  Visual effects -"Gravity"
  Cinematography -"Gravity"
  Costume design-"The Great Gatsby"
  Makeup and hairstyling -"Dallas Buyers Club"
  Film editing -"Gravity"
  Documentary (short subject) -"The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life"
  Foreign language film -"The Great Beauty" - Italy
  Short film (live action) -"Helium"
  Short film (animated) -"Mr. Hublot"
  Production design -"The Great Gatsby"
  Sound editing -"Gravity"
  Sound mixing -"Gravity"
  
  
• Indian writer Pankaj Mishra is one of eight writers from seven countries winning a $150,000 Yale University prize each in recognition of their achievements and to support their ongoing work. Mishra, an Indian essayist, memoirist, travel writer and novelist, won the Windham Campbell Literature Prize in non-fiction category, The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale announced on 8 March.“Pursuing high standards of literary style, Pankaj Mishra gives us new narratives about the evolution of modern Asia,” the institution said.Mishra’s work “expands our understanding of the encounter between Western and Non-western culture,” the announcement said. In addition to a novel, “The Romantics”, Mishra has published four works of nonfiction: “Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India“; “An End to Suffering: the Buddha in the World“; “Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond”; and “From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia.” “From the Ruins of Empire”, his most recent book, attempts a re-visioning of the geo-politics of the late nineteenth and twentieth century’s from multiple Asian perspectives. Other winners in the three categories are: in fiction, Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone), Nadeem Aslam (Pakistan), and Jim Crace (United Kingdom); in non—fiction John Vaillant (United States/Canada); and in drama, Kia Corthron (United States), Sam Holcroft (United Kingdom) and Noelle Janaczewska (Australia). All eight writers will accept the prize in person at a ceremony at Yale on Sep 15. The ceremony will be followed by a three-day literary festival celebrating the work of the prize recipients.