Awards & Honours - Current Affairs for February, 2016

He was honoured with the Motion Picture Sound Editor’s Golden Reel Awards at the 63rd ceremony of this event. He is the first Asian to win this award from MPSE of US for best sound. India’s Daughter has been banned from being screened in the nation. Competing films in the list included “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, “ Deadliest Catch”, “Chef’s Table” and many more. Pookutty has won the Oscars for his sound effects in accolade garnering movie Slumdog Millionaire.

Actor Ranveer Singh on 26th February 2016 will be honoured with the Pandit Dinanath Mangeshkar award bestowed by Lata Mangeshkar at a Pune function. Award is conferred each year on artists on 24th April to commemorate the death anniversary of Pandit Dinanath Mangeshkar. The award was instituted in the year 1999 in memory of Dinanath Mangeshkar, father of Lata Mangeshkar. It is awarded to people for outstanding contributions to music and movie.

Chemical sciences researcher Govardhan Mehta on 23rd February 2016 has been conferred with Federal Republic of Germany’s prestigious Cross of the Order Merit. The Hyderabad based professor is a former IISc director and president of the Indian National Science Academy.

Former Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and ex DRDO chief Dr Avinash Chander on 25th February 2016 received the Astronautical Society of India’s Aryabhata Award 2013. The award was received from Dr. Chidambaram, Principle Scientific Advisor to Union Government and Chairman ISRO Dr. AS Kiran Kumar at a SAC function in Ahmedabad. Dr.Ranganath R Navalgund, Vikram Sarabhai Distinguished Professor, received the Aryabhata Award 2012.

Mahomed was conferred with the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature) by French Ambassador Elisabet Barbier in Johannesburg for devotion and promotion of arts. He has a career in this field spanning three decades and currently is Artistic Director of the National Arts Festival in Grahams town. Other awards he has won include the US Merit of Honour Award and Premier’s Award.

Tamil movie Kanavu Variyam directed by Chennai-based techie Arun Chidambaram, has gone on to win the prestigious Remi Award in the US. Other than this award, Kanavu Variyam also won the Special Jury Award at the National Science Festival. It has a song called Kalla Manna which has acompilation of 51 traditional games of rural India. Previous award winners include Ang Lee, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

National award winning film Ottaal directed by J. R. Nair, it is an adaptation of a short story by Chekov and it was won the Crystal Bear award at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in the Generation Kplus section. The movie involves an old fisherman as a protagonist along with his grandson. Previously , the following two movies also won awards at this film festival: Killa and Dhanak.

Jury of the 59th annual World Press Photo has selected the image by Aussie photographer Warren Richardson as the World Press Photo of the Year 2015. This picture also won the first prize in the Spot news categories. The 2016 contest drew entries from around the world: 5,775 photographers from 128 countries submitted 82,951 images. The jury gave prizes in eight categories to 41 photographers from 21 countries. World Press Photo foundation is based in Amsterdam.

Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar presented the Raksha Mantri’s Trophy and citation for the Best and Second Best Service Hospital in the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) to Command Hospital (Eastern Command), Kolkata, and INHS Asvini, Mumbai respectively. The Raksha Mantri’s Trophy was instituted in 1989 to create a healthy competition among the Command Hospitals of the Army and its equivalent hospitals in the Navy and Air Force.

Fashion designer Manish Arora on 16th February 2016 was awarded with the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur by the French Ambassador Francois Richier. This is France’s highest civilian honour. Arora was earlier creative director at Paco Rabanne and was awarded the Best Women Pret Designer at Indian Fashion Awards. He also won the designer’s choice for Best Collection Award at Miami Fashion Week.

Taylor Swift has taken the award for the Album of the Year at the 2016 Grammy Awards for her 2014 album entitled “1989”. This is her second Album of the year win following the 2010 victory for Fearless. The most awards at the ceremony were won by 28 year old rap artist Kendrick Lamar. The two Indian names in the race to win the Grammy’s was Sitarist Anoushka Shankar and documentary director Asif Kapadia. Also, the Best Instrumental Composition Award went to a composition by Arturo O’farrell and The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, featuring Indian artiste Rudresh Mahanthappa.

Indo-British filmmaker Asif Kapadia on 15th February 2016 won the Grammy Award for the Best Music film for his documentary on singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse’s life entitled “Amy.” On 14th February. Amy also won the BAFTA award in the best documentary category. Amy has also been nominated for the Oscar’s.

Education Minister N. Bennet announced that prize committee headed by professor Shaul Shaked had selected internationally renowned expert David Shulman as the winner of the Israel Prize this year. Shulman is also well versed in numerous Indian languages such as Tamil and Sanskrit. The 67 year old is also known for his leftist leanings. The Israel Prize has been given to the professor for his research into the literature and culture of southern India. Israel Prize is considered the highest honour of the country and it is presented on their Independence Day each year.

• Vinita Gupta, CEO and Nilesh Gupta MD Lupin Ltd have been selected as EY Entrepreneurs of the year 2015. Former Vice Chairman, TCS F.C.Kohli won the lifetime achievement award.
• Other winners include Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO, One97 Communications Ltd. (Paytm)for Startups and Siddhartha Lal, MD & CEO, Eicher Motors Ltd for business transformation. R. S. Agarwal, Executive Chairman, and R. S. Goenka, Whole-time Director, Emami Ltd won the award in the category of retail and consumer products. Meanwhile, Samir Mehta, Chairman,Torrent Pharma. Ltd won in the category of Life-sciences and Healthcare while
  Ramachandra N. Galla, Chairman, Amara Raja Batteries Ltd (Manufacturing), Krishnakumar Natarajan, CEO and MD, Mindtree Ltd (Services), Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, CMD, Bandhan Financial Services Ltd (Financial Services) and Romesh Sobti, MD and CEO, IndusInd Bank Ltd (Entrepreneurism) were selected as other winners by a 11 member panel led by Adi Godrej.

New version of Next Generation e-ticketing system introduced by Indian Railway and Tourism Corporation has won the fold in national award for e-governance in 2015-2016 under “Innovative use of ICT by CPSUs”. The award provides recognition for use of innovative ICT for increasing efficiency outcomes.

Government of India has made the announcement for the Prime Minister’s Shram awards for 2014 to be given to 54 departmental and PSU employees of central and state governments and private sector units with 500 or more workers. The awards were given for outstanding contributions to productivity and exceptional bravery as well as presence of mind. This year, nine nominations for the Shram Bhushan Award, Nineteen nominations for Shram Vir/Shram Veerangana and twenty six nominations for Shram Shree/Shram Devi Awards have been selected. Even though, the total number of Shram Awards is 32, the number of workers receiving the Awards is 54 (Including 3 women), as some of the Awards have been shared by workers and/or teams of workers consisting of more than one worker. These include 36 workers from the public sector and 18 workers from the private sector. The 4 different award categories are Shram Ratna, Shram Bhushnam, Shram VIr/Veerangana and Shram Shree/Devi awards.

Kerala’s all women taxicab service She Taxi on 3rd February 2016 received the CM’s Award for Innovation in Public Policy 2014 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. This taxicab service was selected under the developmental interventions category. This is India’s leading and first 24/7 taxi network for ladies by ladies. This taxicab service is promoted by Gender Park.

For supporting the Make in India week, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and Qualcomm Inc through venture investment arm Qualcomm Ventures announced the largest startup contest in India called “QPrize Make in India” by awarding USD 350,0000 in equity investment as cash money prize for the company that wins the contest. The goal of this award contest is to galvanise entrepreneurial ventures and start up growth in India.

Well known actress Waheeda Rehman has been honoured for a special contribution to the film industry at the Yashwant International Film Festival which is a JV of Y.C. Pratishthan and Pune Film Foundation. Festival was organised from January 22 to 28 in which around 60-65 movies were screened.