AWARDS OCTOBER 2013

AWARDS OCTOBER 2013

• Former Indian Tennis player-turned film producer Ashok Amritraj was presented with the 'Soul of India Award' for his outstanding achievements in the film industry on 29 October 2013.NRI industrialist Dr. Rami Ranger presented the award to the Ashok Amritraj at the Indian Journalists Association's meet held at the Bombay Palace in London. Mrs. Paul, wife of Dr. Virendra Paul, formally launched Amritraj's book'Advantage Hollywood' on the occasion. Ashok Amritraj is a former tennis player and has represented India on an international level. He played in all major tennis tournaments during his nine-year career including Wimbledon and the US Open. His brothers, Vijay Amritraj and Anand Amritraj, are also accomplished tennis players. Amritraj has produced 109 Hollywood films. His hits, starting with 'Double Impact' in 1991, have included 'Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance', 'Bandits', 'Machete and Premonition'.
  
• Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor was honoured in the House of Commons, London for her contribution to the global entertainment industry, on 29 October 2013. The 33-year old actress was presented with a framed golden coloured plaque by NRI MP Keith Vaz, Chairman of Britain’s Home Affairs Committee. Kareena was also honoured by the Asian Sunday Newspaper. Besides Kareena, singer Kimberley Walsh and magician Dynamo (Aka Steven Frayne) was honoured by the Asian Sunday Newspaper for their contributions to the global entertainment-industry. Kareena is the only Bollywood artist to be honoured at British Parliament after Amitabh Bachchan and she is the first Bollywood actress to be honoured by UK Parliament.
  
• Renowned Bharatnatyam exponent Geeta Chandran was honoured with the prestigious Guru Debaprasad Award for outstanding contribution in the field of dance on 29 October 2013. The award was presented to Geeta Chandran and three others by Odisha Governor S. C. Jamir at in Bhubaneswar. Guru Debaprasad Award is an annual award instituted in memory of eminent Odissi exponent Guru Debaprasad Das. The award was constituted by Tridhara Dance Institute in the year 2007. Geetha chandran is India’s renowned Bharatanatyam dancer. She was recipient of Padmashri and a celebrated artist, Geetha Chandran is almost synonymous with the Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam.
  
• Former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen on 27 October 2013 conferred with the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award by NGO the Harmony Foundation for her efforts towards achieving social justice in Mumbai.Bollywood actress Sushmita Sen, who is associated with different charitable projects and NGOs, received the award for her efforts towards achieving social justice and her contribution to society. Along with Sushmitha Sen, seven individuals and an association, India Rescue Mission, were also awarded the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice 2013 for their contributions in the field of human rights and community development. The Mother Teresa International Award is an annual award, constituted by Harmony Foundation, which was founded in October 2005 by Dr. Abraham Mathai to establish communal harmony between various communities, castes and work towards the benefit of all the communities without any discrimination as to religion, caste, creed, gender or region.
• Anjali Gopalan on 25th October 2013 was awarded with French highest civilian award Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur. She was awarded for her work on transgenders and HIV positive patients. She was awarded at a function, by Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the French Cabinet Minister for Women’s Right. Gopalan is an Indian Human Rights and Animals Rights Activist. She started the Naz Foundation (India) Trust as its executive director, which further changed the lives of the HIV Positive, transgenders and homosexuals in New York. She started her career as a social worker working for the migrants of the south East Asian who lacked valid documents.
  
• Aung Suu Kyi, on 23rd October 2013, has received the Sakharov Prize for ‘Freedom of Thought’ at Strasbourg, France. She was chosen by the European Parliament in 1990.The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought announced by the European Parliament in 1990 when she was under house arrest. The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought is awarded each year by the European Parliament. The prize was set up in 1988 to honour individuals or organisations for their efforts on behalf of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Sakharov Prize for free speech is awarded annually in memory of Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov
  
• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on 14 October 2013 decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2013 to Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert J. Shiller for their empirical analysis of asset prices. 1. Eugene F. Fama of University of Chicago, IL, USA 2.Lars Peter Hansen of University of Chicago, IL, USA 3.Robert J. Shiller of Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA The three American Economists awarded for their work on creating a deeper knowledge of how market prices move. The prize is worth 8m Swedish krona (775,000 Pounds; 1.2m Dollars), which will be shared equally among the three winners. The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences is not one of the original Nobel prizes. It was created in 1968 by the Swedish Central Bank in memory of Alfred Nobel, who established the prizes for Chemistry, Medicine, Physics, Literature and Peace in 1895. The first Economics prize was awarded in 1969.The Nobel Foundation does not officially recognize it as a Nobel Prize, but as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has been awarded 45 times to 74 Laureates between 1969 and 2013.
  
• Eleanor Catton, the New Zealand author, at the age of just 28 years, became the youngest ever winner of the Man Booker Prize for her novel The Luminaries on 15th October 2013 at the London's Guildhall. Her novel The Luminaries is the story of 19th-century goldfields, which won 50000 Pound Man Booker Prize 2013 along with a trophy, and Emmanuel Roman. It is important to note that The Luminaries is also the longest work to win this prize in the history of 45 years of Man Booker Prize. She is the second New Zealander to win the Man Booker Prize, after Keri Hulme for The Bone People in 1985.The last Prize was won by Hilary Mantel for Bring Up the Bodies, which was the sequel of the Wolf Hall. It is important to note that in the year 2014, the Man Booker Prize will open its doors for the authors writing in English from all over the world. At present, it is awarded to the English-language authors only from the Commonwealth nations, including the Zimbabwe, Ireland and the United Kingdom. At present, the Man Booker Prize is one of the richest literary prizes of the world.
  
• In a tribute to the legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra on the eve of his first death anniversary, melody queen Lata Mangeshkar was conferred the first Yash Chopra Memorial Award at a glittering function in Mumbai on 19th October. Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari presented the award. Dedicated to the memory of the late producer-director; the Yash Chopra Memorial Award has been instituted by the TSR Foundation of T Subbarami Reddy. Chopra was a victim of dengue in Mumbai Oct 21 last year, spelling the end of a romantic and passionate era of filmmaking. Carrying a cheque of Rs1 million and a citation, the memorial award will be given annually to people in recognition of their outstanding contribution in the field of art and culture. Lata has been conferred several national and international honours, including Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, three national film awards and and the One Time Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of India's Independence.
  
• The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 was awarded jointly to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider" .François Englert was born on 6th November 1932, Etterbeek, Belgium. He is the professor in Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.Peter W. Higgs was born on 29 May 1929, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.He is the professor in University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
  
• The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2013 was awarded jointly to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel "for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems". Martin Karplus was born on 15 March 1930, Vienna, Austria. He works in the Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France, Harvard University, and Cambridge, MA, USA. Michael Levitt was born on 9 May 1947, Pretoria, South Africa. He works in the Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA. Arieh Warshelwas born on 20 November 1940, Kibbutz Sde-Nahum, Israel. He works in the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
  
• The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2013 was awarded jointly to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof "for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells". James E. Rothman was born on 3 November 1950, Haverhill, MA, USA. He works in the Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Randy W. Schekman was born on 30 December 1948, St. Paul, MN, USA. He works in the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Thomas C. Südhof had born on 22nd December 1955 Goettingen, Germany. He works in the Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
  
• Canadian author Alice Munro has won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature. Making the announcement, Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, called her a "master of the contemporary short story". The 82-year-old, whose books include Dear Life and Dance of the Happy Shades, is only the 13th woman to win the prize since its inception in 1901. Presented by the Nobel Foundation, the award - which is presented to a living writer - is worth eight million kronor (£770,000).Munro, who began writing in her teenage years, published her first story, The Dimensions of a Shadow, in 1950.In 2009, she won the Man Booker International Prize for her entire body of work - but she downplayed her achievements. Often compared to Anton Chekhov, she is known for writing about the human spirit and a regular theme of her work is the dilemma faced by young girls growing up and coming to terms with living in a small town. The Nobel academy praised her "finely tuned storytelling, which is characterized by clarity and psychological realism". Her writing has brought her several awards. She won The Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the National Book Critics Circle prize for Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, and is a three-time winner of the Governor General's prize. Other notable books include Lives of Girls and Women, Who Do You Think You Are, The Progress of Love and Runaway.
  
• The Nobel Peace Prize 2013 was awarded to Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) "for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons".The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has become the surprise choice for this year's Nobel peace prize, a decision the Oslo committee said recognized both its current, hazardous mission to destroy Syria's chemical weapons stocks and 16 years of wider global efforts. The international chemical weapons watchdog, a relatively new global body, set up in 1997 in The Hague, with a relatively tiny annual budget of about £60m, trumped the established bookmakers' favorites of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl turned advocate for female education, and Denis Mukwege, the Congolese gynecologist who has helped huge numbers of rape victims. The OPCW, which has 500 staff, is the 25th institution among the 94 winners in the prize's history, and the second in succession, after the controversial choice of the EU in 2012.However, the Nobel committee's citation said the prize was a more general one, to mark "its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons" and nudge the few remaining nations that had not yet signed up to the organization. The work of the OPCW, which has 189 member states, had "defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law", the committee said, adding that events in Syria had "underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons". The OPCW was set up to implement the 1992 global chemical weapons convention. It says it has managed to oversee the destruction of more than 80% of the world's declared stocks of chemical weapons, excluding those now declared in Syria.
  
• A young man from India is among 10 people from around the world selected for a prestigious United Nations award on 11th October, in recognition of their work as entrepreneurs and use of technology to change the world. The winner from India is Varun Arora who created 'Open Curriculum', an online educational material for standard, primary and secondary schooling. The recipients of the 10 Young Innovators Competition organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)Telecom come from a wide range of countries including India, Uganda and Vietnam and have worked on diverse issues such as marine protection, reduction of food waste and immigration."These are bright young minds with creative technological solutions to developmental challenges both in their communities and in the wider world," said ITU secretary-general Hamadoun Toure. The UN competition is open to young social entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 26 and seeks innovative digital solutions in the form of start-ups or initial concepts meeting global developmental challenges. The winners would heading to the ITU Telecom World 2013 in Bangkok in November.
  
• Eminent agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan on 10th October 2013 selected for the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration for the year 2012. MS Swaminathan is an Indian geneticist and former member of Rajya Sabha. M.S. Swaminathan contributed to the agricultural renaissance in the country and led the nation to achieve green revolution. The Indian national congress (i), in its centenary year 1985, instituted an Indira Gandhi award for national integration to give recognition to outstanding contribution to this cause by distinguished individuals or institutions. The award carries a citation and cash award of 5 lakh rupees.
  
• Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen shot by the Taliban for championing girls' education won the European Union's (EU) Sakharov human rights prize 2013 on 10th October 2013. Past winners of the Sakharov Prize include South African anti apartheid hero Nelson Mandela and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought is awarded each year by the European Parliament. The prize was set up in 1988 to honour individuals or organizations for their efforts on behalf of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Sakharov Prize for free speech is awarded annually in memory of Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.
  
• Karan Thapar, television journalist chosen for the International Press Institute (IPI) – India award for excellence in journalism 2013 on 8th October 2013 for his interviews on the Devil's Advocate programme on CNN IBN. He was selected by a distinguished jury of editors and publishers headed by the former Chief Justice of India, A. S. Anand. Previous winners of the International Press Institute award include The Indian Express, NDTV, Outlook, Tehelka, Tribune and The Week. Karan Thapar is an Indian television commentator and interviewer. He is conducting programmes like Devil's Advocate, The Last Word on CNN-IBN and India Tonight on CNBC TV 18. The International Press Institute is a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists.
• The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee presented the ‘Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration, Academics and Management’ 2013 to Dr. Rajendra Achyut Badwe, Director, Tata Memorial Centre, Professor and Head, Department of Surgical Oncology Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan on October 01, 2013. The award carries a cash prize of Rs.5 lakhs, a citation and a plaque. He is an international opinion leader in oncology, developing breast cancer care strategies, innovative research, integrating delivery systems, improving quality and cancer management programs and capacity building of staff on cancer care delivery strategy and practice issues.
  
• His original research "On Timing of Surgery during The Menstrual Cycle for Operable Breast Cancer" has led to a paradigm shift in understanding of cancer biology and evolved cost- effective life-saving treatment globally. A Dorab Tata Scholar (1974- 1978), Dr Badwe has been a recipient of several prestigious international and national awards including Padmashree. His significant accomplishments in leadership in cancer care are a testimony to his role as a mentor in developing the cancer care strategy for Government of India and WHO. He leads the Innovation Council for Cancer Research and the team that is planning the national cancer centre for Government of India.
  
• A senior Indian journalist, Ravi Shankar Narsimhan, on 29th September 2013 was presented with Friendship award by China-the highest honor given to foreigners. Narsimhan is the executive editor in the overseas edition of the Beijing based China Daily. Ravi Shankar hails from Andhra Pradesh. He has worked with China Daily for 11 years. He was given the award for helping China better tell its stories to the outside world. He is one among the 50 foreign experts from 20 countries and diverse fields, who have been rewarded. The Friendship Award is an annual award given by the Chinese government to honour outstanding foreign experts in China.
  
• Rafiq Kathwari, an Indian-American poet on 29 September 2013 selected for 2013 Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award for the collection of his debut poems. Rafiq Kathwari is the first non-Irish person to win the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. Rafiq Kathwari's collection of 20 unpublished poems In another Country was selected for the coveted award amidst 112 contestants from across the world. Rafiq Kathwari, a Kashmiri by descent has become the first non-Irish to have won the award and will recieve 1000 Euros as the prize money. He has translated selected Urdu poems of Alama Iqbal, creating his own version. His poems are mostly inspired by loss of innocence in Kashmir and from his mother's long time illness. The award was founded by the Patrick Kavanagh Society in 1971 to commemorate the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh.