Awards & Honours - Current Affairs for January, 2015

The awarding of the Grand Prix, which last year awarded "Calvin and Hobbes" creator Bill Watterson, to Otomo highlights the importance of mangas in France, where they represent a quarter of all comic book sales.

Colonel Rai, a 2/9 Gorkha Rifles officer who was commanding 42 Rashtriya Rifles, and J&K police head constable Sanjeevan Singh laid down their lives in the fierce encounter, which led to the killing of two Hizbul Mujahideen militants at Handora village of Tral in south Kashmir.

Colombia's Paulina Vega was crowned Miss Universe beating out contenders from the United States, Ukraine, Jamaica and The Netherlands at the world's top beauty pageant in Florida.

He was born in Azamgarh, a district in Uttar Pradesh and went to the United States at the age of 15.

Major Varadarajan, who was an officer in the Rajput Regiment of the Indian Army, killed three terrorists in an encounter in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir in April last while Naik Neeraj Singh leading a search operation in general area Gurdaji of Kupwara district in August came under heavy fire from terrorists.

Lal Krishna Advani has been awarded with Padma Vibhushan Award in the Public Affairs discipline; Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Swami Rambhadracharya has been awarded in the Others category; Dr. D. Veerendra Heggade has been awarded with the Padma Vibhushan Award in the Social Work discipline.

Shri Karim Al Hussaini Aga Khan (Foreigner) of France/UK (State/Domicile)given Padma Vibhusan award in the disciple of Trade and Industry.

Padam Vibhusan is the second highest civilian award after Bharat Ratna. Padma Vibhushan is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; Padma Bhushan for distinguished service of high order and Padma Shri for distinguished service in any field. The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year.

The award has been instituted by Jindal Global Business School (JGBS) and Top Rankers’ Management Consultants.

Total 104 persons were chosen for these awards, of which 9 were awarded Padma Vibhushan, 20 were awarded Padma Bhushan and 75 were awarded Padma Shri.

The design on the façade of the building is actually a puzzle made from intricate lines of balconies on the front and rear, and there is another garden maze on the roof top.

He was conferred with this award for the commendable election related measures taken by him in the area of ‘Expenditure Monitoring and Tackling Money Power’ during the General Elections of 2014.

He holds the Guinness record of filing highest number of published letters to the editors.

J & K for the first time was awarded since the institution of awards in 1997.

Of the several entries in the category only three portals — Navbharat Times, Maharashtra Times and Divya Bhaskar managed to reach the final shortlisting, from which NBT emerged as the winner.

He was awarded for being an active blogger and user of different social networking sites. He makes the most use of social media to communicate with his fans and well-wishers.

The jury cited Dr Rajan's "disciplined and focused approach" to tackling macroeconomic instability, his "deep understanding" of the root causes of economic problems and an "impressive leadership style" as reasons for him winning the award.