Awards & Honours - Current Affairs for October, 2015

A Saudi Arabian blogger sentenced to 10 years and 1000 lashes for insulting Muslim clerics, Raif Badawi has been selected for the EU’s acclaimed Sakharov Prize for human rights. This award for freedom of thought is named after Russian scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov and was established in 1988 to honour persons and organisations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. He was one of 3 nominees for the prize this year alongside opposition movement Mesa de la Unidad Democratic and assassinated Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

Filmmakers on 28th October 2015 returned national awards in light of rising intolerance in the country and in support of protesting FTII students. 10 filmmakers including Dibakar Banerjee, Paresh Kamdar and eight other filmmakers returned their awards while extending support to the FTII students, who have been protesting against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the institute's chairman. Other film directors who returned their awards include Lipika Singh, Nishtha Jain, Anand Patwardhan, Kirti Nakhwa, Harsh Kulkarni, Hari Nair.

Indian film maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan and film critic Aruna Vasudev will receive the lifetime achievement award at the second edition of this festival to be held in Colombo from November 7 to 11. Close to 100 films from different nations will be shown free of charge to public at different locations in Colombo. Films that will be screened include Guru Dutt directed Pyassa and Adoor’s Elippathayam, and Baldvin Zophoníasson’s Vonarstræti. Festival will also showcase films made in different nations such as China, Brazil, Iran and France.

Director Pan Nalin’s film, Angry Indian Goddesses in October 2015 was awarded with BNL People’s Choice Award at the 10th Rome Film Festival held in Rome, Italy. Winner was selected through online voting. It also won honours at earlier festivals such as the 2015 International Toronto Film Festival. The drama film stars Sandhya Mridul along with Tannishtha Chatterjee and Sarah Jane Dias.

Vella Krishnakumar, ex head of Mathematics department at Calicut University has been conferred with the INSA teacher award. He has been chosen for his contribution to science teaching. INSA or Indian National Science Academy is a leading recognition for science teachers and academics in the nation.

9 artistes including Ashwini Bide Deshpande, Iqbal Ahmed Khan, Nath Neralkar, Nayan Ghosh and Ronu Majumdar received awards for their contribution to music while eight eminent dancers were also honoured. A total of 35 Indian personalities were conferred the Akademi awards. Other winners include folk singer Abdul Rashid Hafiz and noted playwright Asgar Wajahat. The awards carry a cash prize of INR 1 lakh.

Robert Mugabe, who is accused of using violence and torture in Zimbabwe to capture power has become the latest recipient of China’s Confucius Prize beating competition from Microsoft founder Bill Gates and S. Korean president Park Geun-hye. News of his winning award sparked outrage and ridicule among opposition groups and human rights activists.

Veteran criminologist K. Chockalingam in the 4th week of October 2015 was conferred the Paul. H. Appleby Award by IIPA. He has been professor and researcher in the field of criminology in Madras University is Vice President of World Society of Victimology. He has also worked as Chair Professor of Criminal Law in NLU, Delhi from 2012-2014. He has authored more than 4 books and 75 research papers apart from winning awards such as Distinguished International Scholar Award of American Society of Criminology. He has also been founder and president of various societies for criminologists in India and abroad.

The Dasntagoi artist returned the award, becoming the second to do so after Maya Krishna Rao. Hussain received the Akademi’s Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar in 2010 jointly with Mahmood Farooqui for Dastangoi, a folk narrative of Uttar Pradesh. This is one of the landmark moments when many writers, poets, thinkers and artists have returned their recognition en masse.

The writer will be returning her award in solidarity with other writers against state supported violence. She received the Sahitya Akademi award in 2013 for her work`Saahityakasham Lo Sagam', a critique of literature.

Celebrated Hindi and Urdu poet Munawwar Rana has decided to return the Sahitya Akademi award. He has also refused to accept any awards from the government after this. Rana had won the Sahitya Akademi award in 2014 for massive contribution to Urdu literature and poetry. Before him, writers such as Katyayani Vidmahe and Ghulab Nabi Khayal as well as Nand Bhardwaj have returned their awards.

Nobel Peace prize awardee Kailash Satyarthi has been conferred with the prestigious humanitarian award for 2015 in recognition of his contribution to child rights. Satyarthi is the first Indian to be honoured with this award. The annual award is given by the prestigious university to individuals whose works and deeds have improved the quality of living and inspired people to higher heights. The award has been given recognition of his contributions in the field of child rights and abolition of child slavery. He has gotten child protection and welfare related clauses included under UN SDG to end slavery, trafficking, forced labour and violence. Former winners of this award include Javier Perez de Cuellar, Ban Ki-moon, Bishop Desmond Tutu and John Hume.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem conferred an honorary doctorate on President Pranab Mukherjee at a ceremony in Jerusalem, Israel on October 15, 2015. Indian seeks to collaborate with Israel in the field of training and digitalisation of education.

Al Quds University on 13th October 2015 awarded an honorary doctorate to President Pranab Mukherjee at a ceremony where he also announced the establishment of an India Chair at the university. This Palestine University was founded in 1984 and has campuses in Jerusalem, Abu Dis, and al-Bireh.

Well known Malayalam filmmaker I. V. Sasi was honoured with the J. C. Daniel award for 2014 for contributions to the film industry. He has made over 150 Indian films and is mostly known for his S. Indian movies. He started his career with a film entitled Ulsavam. He has directed more than 170 movies over 3 decades. In the year 1982, Aaroodam (a film directed by him) won the Nargis Dutt Award for the best feature film on National Integration. J. C. Daniel award is given annually by the Government of Kerala.

The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2015 was awarded to Angus Deaton of Princeton University for analysis of poverty, consumption and welfare. His research linked individual choices with aggregate outcomes, helping to transform the fields of development economics, microeconomics and macroeconomics.

The University of Jordan conferred Honorary Doctorate in Political Science on President Pranab Mukherjee at a ceremony in Amman on October 11, 2015. Both India and Jordan have supported each other on multilateral fora including the US and converge on views regarding issues such as Palestine, the Middle East Peace Process, Syria, Iraq and the challenges confronting in the region plus the agreement on the need to expedite UNSC reforms reflect common approach to these important issues.

Academy award winning music composer and singer A. R. Rehman has been chosen for the 2015 Hridaynath Mangeshkar Award following a career spanning two decades in the Indian music industry. The award was constituted in 2011 by Hridayesh Art, a Mumbai- based socio-cultural organisation in honour of music composer and singer Hridaynath Mangeshkar, son of noted musician Deenanath Mangeshkar and younger brother of Indian music legends Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle. Previous recipients of the award include Amitabh Bachchan, Sulochana Tai, Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle.

Following Nayantara Sehgal and Ashok Vajpeyi, novelist Rahman Abbas will be returning the Maharashtra State Urdu Sahitya Academy Award, which he won in 2011 for his third novel Khuda Ke Saaye Mein Aankh Micholi (Hide-and Seek in the Shadow of God). He has taken this action as a protect against rising intolerance of Hindu right wing groups against minorities. Abbas’s first Urdu novel was Nakhlistan ki Talash, published in 2004.

Nualgi, an Indian firm in the field of nano biotechnology has won the Popular Choice Awards at the Climate CoLab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge. This marks the first time an Indian company has won this contest. Sampath Kumar from Bangalore formed Nualgi following R&D in nano biotechnology. MIT Climate CoLab initiative involves 50,000 people from across the globe working to solve the problem of climate change.

The Nobel prize for literature went to 67 year old Belarus author Svetlana Alexievich for her polyphonic writings. She is the 14th woman literature laureate. She has chronicled the biggest tragedies of Soviet Union and its collapse, WW2, Soviet war in Afghanistan, Chernobyl disaster and communism initiated suicides. Alexievich, the daughter of two school teachers lives in Minsk and supports opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Swedish scientist Tomas Lindahl, American Paul Murdoch and Turkish American scientist Aizi Sancar won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for mechanistic studies of DNA repair. Their work has provided “fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy. Their findings have been used for the development of new cancer treatments, among other things, the academy also added. Lindahl is presently an emeritus group leader at Francis Crick Institute and Emeritus director of Cancer Research at Clare Hall Laboratory in the UK.
Modrich is an researcher at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor at Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC. Sandra is professor of University of North Carolina School of Medicine in NC. 8 million Swedish kronor award will be handed on December 10 which the anniversary of the founder of the prize Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

Saudi blogger Raif Badawai has been selected for a free speech prize, the PEN Pinter Prize along with British poet James Fenton. Badawi served 10 years in prison after being convicted of insulting Islam and he was also flogged publicly. Groups such as Amnesty International have campaigned for his release. The award was accepted on the blogger’s behalf by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. PEN Pinter Prize was established in the year 2009 in memory of Noble prize winner and playwright Harold Pinter and run by writer’s group PEN. Fenton is a former professor of poetry at Oxford University as well as a war correspondent.

Union MHA minister Shri Rajnath Singh presented CoE to Shri R. R. Verma, director general RPF for commendable contribution through Operation Smile in the field of anti human trafficking. Indian Railways has formed the Child Protection Committees at railway stations across the country. The RPF, being the most active component of Child Protection Committees has been rescuing trafficking children and handing them over to either legitimate guardians, or authorised NGOs, in this field. In 2014, 4658 minor children were rescued by RPF while in 2015, so far 3969 have been rescued by personnel from RPF.

Well known author and niece of Jawaharlal Nehru, Nayantara Sehgal has on 6th October 2015 returned the Sahitya Akademi award to protest growing intolerance against right to dissent in the nation. Sehgal received the award in the 1980s for English novel Rich Like Us (1985). She also cited the recent murders of rationalists like M. M. Kalburgi and Govind Pansare apart from the brutal lynching of village blacksmith Mohammed Akhlaq on the charge of cooking beef in his home.

Japanese researcher Takaaki Kajita and Canadian physicist Arthur B. McDonald have won the Nobel prize in Physics 2015 for discovering neutron oscillations showing that neutrinos have mass. These are one of the fundamental particles making up the universe and subatomic particles are produced by decay of radioactive elements lacking electric charge. Researchers studying changes of identity among most abundant inhabitants in the universe have claimed this year’s prize. This discovery has solved a longstanding puzzle involving neutrinos whereby two thirds of the neutrino released in nuclear reactions was missing on earth as against the sun. As regards the whereabouts of the neutrino, neutrinos change identities and this has been suggested as a solution for the puzzle.

Tiruchirapalli City Municipal Corporation was awarded the Skoch Smart Governance Award for Operational Excellence in Waste Transportation using ICT based solutions. Award was conferred by Skoch, a group based in Gurgaon that deals with social issues. City corporation used RFID/Radio Frequency Identification System for solid waste management in the city. RFID is a wireless use of electromagnetic fields for transferring data to automatically identify and track tags associated with objects, while tags carry electronically stored information.

NASA conferred awards to participants who developed architectural concepts taking advantage of 3-D printing to imagine what Martian habitat may look like. Team Space Exploration Architecture and Clouds Architecture Office won first prize for their design, Mars Ice House. Second place went to Team Gamma while Team LavaHive was awarded third place.

The Nobel Prize 2015 in Physiology or Medicine went to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura, and Youyou Tu. While the first two scientists discovered a novel therapy for roundworm parasite infection for which they were awarded, Tu won the prize for discoveries in the field of novel therapy for malaria. While Campbell and Omura discovered a new drug, Avermectin, the derivatives of which have lowered the incidence of River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis, and showed efficacy against other parasitic diseases, Tu discovered Artemisinin, a drug that has considerably reduced the mortality rates for patients suffering from Malaria.

Tamil writer Perumal Murugan is going to be conferred with the 4th Indian languages festival Samanvay Bhasha Samman award which recognises contribution to literature in India. He will receive the award for Madhorubhagan given to honour the promotion of the unbroken literary tradition of Tamil language. Past winners of the award include Hindi author Ashok Vajpeyi, Gujarati author Chandrakant Topiwala and Odiya writer Sitakant Mahapatra. The jury for the award was chaired by K Satchidananda and comprised Sachin Ketkar, Manglesh Dabral, Mitra Phukan and Arundhati Subramaniam. Murugan has written 9 novels and 4 collections of poetry and short stores. 3 of his works have been translated to English namely “One Part Woman” “Current Show” and “Seasons of the Palm.”

Transformational leadership was recognised and honoured by the Forbes India Leadership Award. Outstanding startup of the year was Ola founded by Ankit Bhati and Bhavish Aggarwal. Next gen entrepreneur of the year was Siddhartha Lal ( Eicher Motors Ltd) and Entrepreneur with Social Impact was Samit Ghosh from Ujjivan Financial Services Pvt Ltd. Conscious capitalist company for the year was Godrej Consumer Products Ltd and Amul. Best CEO for MNC company went to Uday Shankar of Star India Pvt Ltd. Arundhati Bhattacharya (SBI) was honoured with the best CEO award in the public sector. In the private sector, the best CEO award went to C. P. Gurnani of Tech Mahindra Ltd. Lifetime Achievement Award for the year went to R.C. Bhargava of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd while Uday Kotak was judged Entrepreneur for the year for Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. The Forbes leadership award was instituted in the year 2011 by American business periodical Forbes and awards are given in 9 categories each year.

Coventry on 1st October 2015 honoured Ratan Tata with the highest award - Honorary Freeman of the City of Coventry. Since 1914, only 13 people have been conferred with the award.An Indian origin professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, who founded the the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), also won the title along with Tata at University of Warwick in Coventry. In 2000, Ratan Tata, the Chairman Emeritus of TATA Group was awarded the Padma Bhushan. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in the year 2008.

Kartik Chandran, Indo-American associate professor of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia Engineering was named a 2015 MacArthur Fellow on 29th September 2015. He was also provided a genius grant of ISD 625,000 for working on research solutions to world’s need for energy, clean water and food. He is an IIT Roorkee graduate and his previous research includes using microbes to turn waste water into drinking water and fertilizer energy. He has previously received grants from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2011 and the Water Environment Research Foundation Paul L. Busch Award (2010), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2009) and a National Academies of Science Fellowship (2007). MacArthur Fellows Programme is also known as Genius Grant.