Awards & Honours - Current Affairs for December, 2015

Well known Gujarati litterateur R. Chaudhary has been selected on 29th December 2015 for the 51st Jnanpith award for his contribution to Indian literature. Noted scholar Namwar Singh chaired the selection board which also comprised Shamim Hanfi, Harish Trivedi, Suranjan Das, Ramakant Rath, Chandrakant Patil, Alok Rai, Dinesh Misra and Leeladhar Mandloi. After Uma Shankar Joshi and Pannalai Patel as well as Rajendra Shah, he is the fourth literary figure from Gujarat to bag the award.

US President Barack Obama will present the National Medal of Science to Indian American professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the tumour biology lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, Rakesh K. Jain. Prof Jain holds a degree in R. Tech from IIT-K and will receive the medal along with 16 other winners of the national medals for science and technology. The National Medal of Science awarded annually since the late 1950s recognises those who have made outstanding contributions to science and engineering. Prof Jain has received close to 75 awards to date.

Chattisgarh has been selected as the best performer across the nation for digitalising services at Lok Seva Kendras and Common Service Centres during the time of the Digital India Week 2015. HP and Meghalaya garnered second and third positions respectively. A DeitY committee selected the winners for this award. Within Chhattisgarh, the following 3 districts have been selected as top performers- Kondagaon, Koriya and Gariyaband. 3 districts of HP selected for the award are Una, Shimla and Sirmour. 3 top districts of Meghalaya are North Garo, East Garo and South West Khasi Hills.

Husband-wife team of Claude and Norma Alvares on 18th December 2015 was honoured with the 2015 Lifetime Services Award by Sanctuary Asia magazine. Another pioneer in fighting wildlife crimes and chairman emeritus of the Wildlife Trust of India, Ashok Kumar was named the Sanctuary Legend. Wildlife Service Award went to 5 others namely Varad Giri, Nandini Velho, Param Jit Singh, Yashveer Bhavnagar and the Gir Lion Protection Team.

India’s President Pranab Mukherjee was conferred with the Garwood Award for Outstanding Global Leadership in Open Innovation from the prestigious UC Berkeley Haas School of Business which has generated more Nobel Laureates till date than any other university. This was the first public university of the world and it was established in 1860s. Prof. Solomon Darwin, Executive Director Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation presented the award to the President.

Search engine Google honoured the yoga teacher B. K. S Iyengar on his 97th birthday with an animated doodle on the homepage. Iyengar was a world renowned yoga guru credited with integrating eight fold or astang yoga known as Iyengar’s Yoga who taught celebs like violinist Yehudi Menuhin and spiritualist J. Krishnamurthi.

Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman has been awarded the Jewish Nobel for his skills as a teacher, musician and advocate for the disabled. Genesis prize or Jewish Nobel is given each year to professionals who have contributed to humanity and Jewish causes as well as the state of Israel. Perlman has so far won 16 Grammy’s including a lifetime achievement award in 2008 and played the violin solo in the Oscar winning Schindler’s List.

Padma Vibhushan award was conferred on Shri Dilip Kumar/Mohammad Yusuf Khan for his exceptional and distinguished service. The award was announced on Republic Day of 2015 and Union Minister Shri Rajnath Singh conferred the award on the senior actor at his residence.

Salman Rushdie, author of Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses and other novels won the Mailer lifetime achievement award. He is a former president of PEN”s American chapter and was honoured with the award on 10th December 2015.

Senior Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah on 9th December 2015 was honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award at 12th edition of Dubai International Film Festival. Other winners at this award ceremony include French actress Catherine Deneuve, French Tunisian actor Sami Bouajila and Egyptian actor Ezzat Al Alayli.

Time magazine has honoured German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Person of the Year 2015. The German Chancellor’s leadership helped to preserve and promote EU without borders. IS leader Al-Baghdadi and Republican presidential aspirant Donald Trump were also among the 8 candidates shortlisted for the honour. PM Narendra Modi, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani and Google’s Sundar Pichai were among the contenders for this annual honour prior to the final shortlist.

Professor U Ramamurty of the Indian Institute of Science has been honoured with the the 2015 Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) prize, which carries a cash prize of USD 15,000, in the engineering category. Former presidents of TWAS have included prominent Indian academicians such as Prof. C. N. R Rao. TWAS prize is conferred by UNESCO. Other Indians who won the award include Jagadish Ladha in International Rice Research Institute and TIFR’s Sandip Trivedi.

The Meeting of the Executive Board of National Council for Promotion of Sindhi Language (NCPSL) which is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Human Resource Development with its aim to promote, develop and propagate Sindhi language, on 4th December during which Executive Board decided to confer two Lifetime Achievement Awards which also carries a Sanman Rashi of Rs. 5.00 lakhs each under two categories, namely Sahitya Rachna Sanman and Sahityakar Sanman. Further, Lifetime Achievement Awards for the year 2014-15 will be conferred to Shri Lakshman Hardwani, and Shri Jairam Rupani, under the categories of Sahitya Rachna Sanman and Sahityakar Sanman respectively. For 2015-2016, the Lifetime Achievement Awards will be conferred to Shri Lakhmi Khilani and Shri Kanhaiya Lal Talreja under the categories of Sahitya Rachna Sanman and Sahityakar Sanman respectively.

Yes Bank has won Bank of the year award in the UK given by Banker’s magazine and regarded as the Oscars of the banking industry. Yes Bank is only 11 years old. Previous winners of this award were large banks. For winning this award, banks from 120 nations were evaluated on numerous parameters such financial figures, technology, innovation, performance and marketing initiatives.

The Best Film Award comprises the Golden Peacock and a citation with prize money of 40 lakhs rupees to be shared between the producer and the director of the movie namely Christina Gallego and Ciro Guerra. The film depicts the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and eventually life transcending friendship between Amazonian shaman Karamakate and two scientists.