AWARDS MARCH 2015

AWARDS MARCH 2015

• Shashi Kapoor: Shashi Kapoor will be conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke award. He is best known for his performance in films "Deewar", "Satyam Shivam Sundaram", "Trishul", "Kabhi Kabhie", "Vijeta" and "Kalyug", Shashi. The veteran actor-producer is the 46th winner of the honour, conferred by the government for outstanding contribution to the growth and development of Indian Cinema.
  
• Madhav Gadgil, Jane Lubchenco:Renowned ecologist Madhav Gadgil has been chosen for the prestigious 2015 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement.
  
  The prize, instituted in 1973, is awarded by the international Tyler Prize Executive Committee with the administrative support of the University of Southern California.
  
  Prof. Gadgil, who was Chairman of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), will share the $200,000 cash prize with noted American marine ecologist Dr. Jane Lubchenco for their work in changing policy and specifically for their leadership and engagement in the development of conservation and sustainability policies in the United States, India and internationally.
  
• 62nd Nat Film awards announced
  The 62nd National Film Awards 2014 were announced on 24th March by the Chairpersons of the three juries on Feature Films, Non Feature Films and Best Writing on Cinema Kangana Ranaut won the best actress award for her powerful performance in "Queen" where Bollywood movies "Haider" and "Mary Kom" bagged key honors while Chaitanya Tamhane's "Court" was named the best feature film.
  
  The Vikas Bahl-directed coming-of-age film was also named the best Hindi feature film.
  
  Vijay was declared the best actor for his poignant portrayal of a woman trapped in a man's body in Kannada film Nanu Avanalla Avalu."Court", which focuses on the flaws in the Indian judicial system, has been winning critical acclaim nationally and internationally.
  
  The award is expected to give a major boost to the movie ahead of its theatrical release on 17th April.
  
  Shahid Kapoor-starrer "Haider", a Kashmir-set modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, won five honors. Its director Vishal Bhardwaj was named the best music director but lost out the best director award to Bengali filmmaker Srijit Mukherji ('Chotushkone').
  
  The Feature Film Central panel was headed by P. Bharathiraja a legend in Tamil cinema and National Film Award winner.
  
  The Central panel comprised of 11 members including Chairman, the Non Feature jury was headed by Kamal Swarup and comprised of 7 members including the Chairman.
  
  The jury on Best Writing on Cinema was headed by Govind Kumar (Madhan) and comprised of 3 members including Chairperson.
  
• Akhil Sharma: Akhil Sharma beat Irish novelist Colm Toibin and Scottish writer Ali Smith to win the Folio Book prize, which is worth of £40,000 prize for his book, Family Life. Indian-born Sharma picked up his award at a ceremony at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in central London.
  
  Family Life, his second novel, tells the story of a family's journey from India to a new life in the United States. It was selected by the New York Times as one of its Top Ten Books for 2014. Sharma was born in Delhi and emigrated to the US in 1979.
  
• Vajpayee: Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a veteran Parliamentarian and founder member of BJP who is held in high esteem across the political spectrum, was conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian honour on 27th March. President Pranab Mukherjee conferred the award on Vajpayee at his residence
  
  Vajpayee is the first non-Congress Prime Minister who completed a full term. His first term was of 13 days in 1996, followed by a 13 month term starting 1998. He was at the helm for 5 years from 1999 to 2004.
  
• ISRO: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been selected for the Gandhi Peace Prize for 2014 for its contribution to the country’s development through space technology and satellite-based services. The award, comprising Rs.one crore and a citation, was decided after the jury for the prize met under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 27th March.
  
  The Gandhi Peace Prize for social, economic and political transformation through non-violence was instituted in 1995.
  
  Previous winners:
  Some of its previous winners are Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Julius K Nyerere, Baba Amte, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan and Ramkrishna Mission.
  
• Kambhampati: An Indian-American and a Sri Lankan-origin scientist and teacher are among fourteen individuals and one organization named winners of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM).
  
  Andhra University graduate Murty S. Kambhampati, a professor of biology at Southern University at New Orleans, and Sri Lankan origin Tilak Ratnanather, an associate professor in the biomedical engineering department of the Johns Hopkins University, Maryland will receive their awards at a White House ceremony later this year.
  
  The PAESMEM is awarded by the White House to individuals and organizations to recognize the crucial role that mentoring plays in the academic and personal development of students studying science and engineering-particularly those who belong to groups that are underrepresented in these fields.
  
  In addition to being honoured at the White House, recipients receive awards of $10,000 from the National Science Foundation. The mentors and organizations announced Fridat represent the winners for 2012 and 2013.
  
  Kambhampati holds a PhD from Jackson State University in Environmental Science and a PhD from Andhra University, India in Ecology. Over the years, he established excellent collaborations with several instittions to place students for summer internships and ecological field trips. according to his profile.
  
• John Nash: Nobel Laureate John F Nash Jr. won the Abel Prize 2015 for his work on partial differential equations. The prize was announced on 25 March 2015 by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters. They will receive the Abel Prize from King Harald at a ceremony in Oslo on 19 May 2015. He will share the Prize with Louis Nirenberg, Professor Emeritus at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. They both will share the prize money of 760000 US dollar.
  
• GP Hinduja: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has presented leading industrialist GP Hinduja with the inaugural NRI Foundation Award for achievements in the field of business. The co-chairman of the Hinduja Group was honored for establishing a global presence across 10 different sectors and his philanthropic work in Britain and India.
  
  The other NRI Foundation Award winners included the Asian Media and Marketing Group, publishers of the 'Garavi Gujarat' magazine, Lloyds Banking Group's Head of Responsible Business Kamel Hothi and the UK Government's Dealmaker for India Alpesh Patel.
  
  The awards ceremony, hosted by UK energy minister Baroness Sandy Verma, concluded a day-long schedule of events for Jaitley aimed at promoting India as an attractive investment destination for UK businesses.
  
• Eisai Pharmatechnology and Manufacturing: The Confederation of Indian Industry CII (Southern Region) has conferred its prestigious Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) Excellence-2014 award on Eisai Pharmatechnology & Manufacturing Pvt. Ltd (EPM), Visakhapatnam. The award is given to organizations which adopt excellent practices in Environmental Health and safety. It is aimed at providing recognition and encouragement to the organizations
  
• Rajendra Singh: Rajendra Singh, environmental activist based in Rajasthan, has been conferred the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize this year for his innovative water restoration efforts and courage to empower communities in Indian villages. Singh, popularly known as “Water Man”, was named for the global award instituted by the Stockholm International Water Institute in 1991. He was given award for his work towards improving water security in rural India and for showing extraordinary courage and determination in his quest to improve the living conditions of those most in need. He won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2001 for his work on community-based water harvesting and water management.
  
• Lata Mangeshkar: Popular Singer Lata Mangeshkar on 20 March 2015 received Laadli Voice of the Century award. She was awarded at the sixth edition of the National Media and Advertising Awards for Gender Sensitivity held at Mumbai
  
  Other awards of National Media and Advertising
  • Best movie – Queen
  • Laadli Grand Prix award – advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather for its advertisement, Titan Raga — tum nahi badle
  • Laadli extraordinaire award – Charu Khurana, she won a landmark judgment in the Supreme Court regarding Bollywood’s bias against women make-up artistes
  
  
• Krishna Podagatlapalli: Krishna Podagatlapalli, a senior research scholar at Advance Centre for Research in High Energy Materials (ACRHEM), University of Hyderabad (UoH) under the guidance of Dr Soma Venugopal Rao has been selected for the best poster award in Frontiers in Nano Science, Technology and Application (FiNSTA) held at Sri Satya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL), Anantapur. He received award for his research paper entitled, "Ag nanomaterials fabricated through laser ablation in aqueous media using an axicon".
  
• Ganasen Reddy: Ganasen Reddy, an Indian-origin South African educator, was on 12 March 2015 awarded with KwaZulu-Natal 2015 National Teachers Awards at the annual National Teaching Awards held in Johannesburg. KwaZulu-Natal 2015 National Teachers Awards is a Lifetime Achievement Award for teaching in South Africa.
  
  Ganasen Reddy was felicitated by South African minister of basic education Angie Motshekga. The award was given to Reddy for sustaining a high-level of achievement throughout his long teaching career by receiving results, awards and recognition over a long period of time.
  
• Debapratim Purkayastha:Debapratim Purkayastha, Associate Dean at ICFAI Business School (IBS), Hyderabad won the “Lifetime Achievement Award” for the outstanding contribution to the Case Method this year.
  
  He is the first Indian to get this award apart from being the youngest recipient given by the Case Centre, which is a not-for-profit organisation based in United Kingdom that works towards advancing the case method worldwide, sharing knowledge and experience to transform business education across the globe. The awards are considered the case method community's annual ‘Oscars’.
  
  Previous winners included Peter Killing and Kamran Kashani, IMD Business School, Switzerland; James A Erskine, Michiel R Leenders and Louise A Mauffette-Leenders of Richard Ivey School of Business, Canada and Nirmalya Kumar, London Business School, United Kingdom.
  
• ESAF Micro journal wins award
  The PR Council of India, Kerala chapter, and Press Club, Ernakulam, has chosen ‘Lahanti,’ the quarterly newsletter from ESAF Microfinance, as the corporate journal with the best content. Chief Minister OommenChandy handed over the award to K Paul Thomas, Chairman and Managing Director, ESAF Microfinance; Mereena Paul, Co-founder and Head-Human Resources; and Sony V Mathew, Editor, Lahanti, which is a Santhali (a tribal language) equivalent for development.
  
• Hifikepunye pohamba: Namibia’s outgoing President Hifikepunye Pohamba on 2nd March winner of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for “good governance” in Africa, the world’s richest award.
  
  A lack of eligible or worthy candidates means that Hifikepunye Pohamba is only the fourth winner of the $5 million annual prize since its launch in 2007. The award, founded by Sudanese-British telecoms entrepreneur and billionaire Mo Ibrahim, is given to a democratically-elected former head of state who left office in the previous three years and who demonstrated exceptional leadership while abiding by constitutional term limits.
  
• Gautham Pai: The Mumbai Mudrak Sangh (MMS) on 3rd March felicitated Gautham Pai, promoter and managing director of The Manipal Group, with the Lifetime Achievement Award on the occasion of MMS Printer’s Day celebration. Maharashtra Industries Minister Subhash Desai presented the award.
  
  Mr. Pai, a student of printing technology at the Manipal Institute of Technology, inherited the business in 2004 from his father. He is the youngest recipient. Manipal Technologies is also the only company to win the PrintWeek India’s ‘Company of the Year’ award twice.