AWARDS

Borlaug Award for IARI scientists
• K.V. Prabhu and Ashok Kumar Singh, scientists at the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI), have been chosen for the 2012 ICAR Norman Borlaug Award for their contribution to food security through
Basmati rice research and development.








Madhav Chavan
• Dubbed as the Nobel Prize for education, WISE prize 2012 was awarded to the CEO of Pratham Education
Foundation (PEF) Madhav Chavan at the WISE summit in Doha, Qatar.
• The Prize was awarded in recognition of his education work in the slums of Mumbai. Pratham Education
Foundation has also extensively worked in the education in Gujarat.
• Madhav Chavan also started the Read India campaign, which aims to teach basic reading, writing and
arithmetic to underprivileged children across India.





Prof. Gopi Chand Narang
• Theorist, literary critic and scholar writing in Urdu.
• Was conferred the “Moortidevi Award for 2010” for his outstanding work ‘Urdu Ghazal aur Hindustani
Zehan wa Tehzeeb” by Bharatiya Gyanpith.










Infosys Prize 2012

• The award is given annually to honor achievements of contemporary researchers and scientists across 6
categories each carrying a prize of a gold medal, a citation and a purse of Rupees 50 Lakh.
• Engineering and Computer Science -> Ashish Lele
• Humanities - > Sanjay Subrahmanyam (History) & Amit Chaudhuri (Literary Studies)
• Life Sciences - > Satyajit Mayor
• Mathematical Sciences - > Manjul Bhargava
• Physical Sciences - > Ayyappanpillai Ajayaghosh
• Social Sciences - > Arunava Sen




Shell Helen Keller Awards
• 7 men and women and 6 organisations were honoured with the 12th NCPEDP-Shell Helen Keller Awards 2012 for their contributions towards improving the lives of disabled persons or serving as role models and a source of inspiration for everyone.
• The International Day of People with Disability is celebrated on December 3.
• The awards in this category are given to disabled persons who work within the disability sector or
outside who have been active as ambassadors of the cause of employment for disabled people and are a
positive role model for others.





Sachin Dev Pavithran
• He is visually challenged and recently Obama Administration appointed him as the Member, Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board.
• The National Federation of the Blind awarded him the Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship.





Naresh Fernandes
• He won the 2012 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize.
• He won this prize for Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age that account of the
city’s music scene between the 1930s and 1960s.







Who among the following is the winner of the prestigious Aryabhatta award for
2011?
[A]P. Kunhikrishnan
[B]G. Satheesh Reddy
[C]A.E. Muthunayagam
[D]V.K. Saraswat
V.K. Saraswat
The former secretary of the Department of Ocean Development, A.E.
Muthunayagam, will receive the prestigious Aryabhatta award, instituted by the
Astronautical Society of India (ASI), for 2010 and V.K. Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to
the Defence Minister, will receive the award for 2011. They have been selected for
their achievements in rocketry. The ASI awards for rocket and related technologies
will go to G. Satheesh Reddy, associate director of the Research Centre, Imarat,
Hyderabad, for 2010 and P. Kunhikrishnan of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre,
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Thiruvananthapuram, for 2011. The
awards for spacecraft and related technologies will go to P. Chakraborty of the
Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems (LEOS), ISRO, Bangalore, (for 2010) and
Yateendra Mehta, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore.

Three Indian Writers Shortlisted for DSC South Asian Literature Prize 2013

Three Indian writers- Uday Prakash, Amitav Ghosh and Jeet Thayil were shortlisted for the US Dollar 50,000 DSC South Asian Literature Prize 2013. The names of shortlisted candidates were announced on 21 November 2012 in London. Others who were shortlisted for the prize include Pakistani novelists Jamil Ahmad and Mohammed Hanif as well as Tahmina Anam of Bangladesh. Only contender from beyond the boundaries of Indian Subcontinent is Jason Grunebaum who is the American Writer, academic and translator.

Amitav Ghosh has been chosen for River of Smoke, Jeet Thayil for the debut novel Narcopolis and Uday Prakash for The Walls of Delhi.

Well known litterateur K. Satchidanandan chairing the jury said that the list represented diversity of the South Asian fiction in terms of idiom and theme. These works, according to the jury member were stylistically innovative, thematically fresh and have a definitive contribution to the genre of novels.

Another member of Prize Steering Committee, Manhad Narula, described these novels as well balanced and excellent which represent finest writing of South Asian region.

The winner of the prize is scheduled to be announced on 25 January 2013 at DSC Jaipur Literature Festival.

About DSC Prize for South Asian Literature
The prize was introduced in 2010 and was described by sponsors as the first of its kind initiative for promotion of best works in English language fiction on South Asian theme.

Madhav Chavan Awarded the Education Nobel Prize

Dr Madhav Chavan was awarded the WISE prize, which is known as the ‘Nobel prize for Education’. He was felicitated on 13 November 2012 at the WISE summit in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

The international award not only felicitated the person himself, but also recognized his efforts to provide lessons in literacy and numeracy for less fortunate and disadvantaged children and adults in India.

The award is decided upon by an international jury, which includes the the US Librarian of Congress, Dr James Billington; the president of Peking University, Prof Zhou Qifeng; former UN high commissioner, Mary Robinson and the chairman of WISE, Dr Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani.

Dr Madhav gave himself up for the cause of social activism and starting helping un educated slum dwellers in Mumbai in the late 80’s once he returned to India after studying in the United States .

After having worked with Unicef and the city authorities, he devised a method for providing lessons for huge number of people at low cost.

Dr Madhav’s charity, Pratham, also carried out lessons in temples and offices and recruited volunteers from the local community. His work expanded and went forth to other cities and states to become the largest non-governmental education provider for deprived children in India.

Mathura Refinery Bagged 13th Annual Greentech Environment Award

Indian Oil's Mathura Refinery was awarded the Platinum Award in the 13th Annual Greentech Environment Awards. The award was felicitated on 31 October 2012.

Mathura Refinery was awarded in regard to the company's outstanding achievements and contribution to apt implementation of environmental friendly technologies and methodologies.

Greentech Awards is a key component that values the need of environmental management in business sustainability.

Katherine Boo won US National Book Award for Mumbai Book

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer Katherine Boo on 14 November 2012 won the national book award for nonfiction for Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, which sheds light on the lives of India's poor as well as government corruption.

Behind the beautiful forever is a story of an ambitious woman who has set her sights on being slumlord in Annawadi, a large slum close to Sahar International Airport in Mumbai the story also revolves around a boy and the harsh and illuminating after effects of crime or perceived crime. More broadly, the book explores themes of inequality and the perseverance of families striving for something better.

The National Book Foundation, which administers the awards, nominated five writers in each of four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people's literature

Urdu Scholar Gopi Chand Narang Awarded Mootidevi Award for 2010

The Vice President of India M. Hamid Ansari  on 16 November 2012 presented the Moortidevi Award for 2010  to eminent Urdu scholar Gopi Chand Narang for his outstanding work on Urdu Ghazal aur Hindustani Zehan wa Tehzeeb at a function organized by Bhartiya Jnanpith.

Gopi Chand Narang revived Urdu language in India through his writings and he is one of the foremost theorist, literary critic and Urdu scholar of our country. His perceptive writings have helped Urdu criticism becoming more contemporary.

It is befitting that his long academic life of excellence has been felicitated by conferring the Moortidevi award on him.
 
About Gopi Chand Narang

Gopi Chand Narang is an Indian scholar of Urdu language and literature, an eminent Urdu writer, scholar, critic and linguist. He is author of many books in Urdu, Hindi and English.

Gopi Chand Narang received many awards from the governments of India and Pakistan and many literary organizations worldwide. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2004. He taught in many universities in India and participates in literary conferences around the world. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu 1993 for Sakhtiyaat, Pas-Sakhtiyaat aur Mashriqi Sheriyaat (Literary criticism), later he remained the president of the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, 2003 to 2007. He was also on the editorial board of Akademi's journal, Indian Literature.

About Moortidevi Award
Moortidevi Award is named in the memory of Moortidevi, mother of Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain, founder of Bharatiya Jnanpith. This Award is presented for a reflective or intellectual work, which underlines and expresses Indian philosophy and cultural heritage based on wider ideals and human values. It is conferred on the litterateur who is alive.
As far as the selection Process is concerned Nomination forms are invited from hundreds of scholars, thinkers and writers of different languages. These forms are presented before the selection board, which is authorised to include any more names to the list. The writer is awarded an amount of Rupees two Lakh, a citation plaque, a Saraswati Statue, a srifal and a shawl.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak honoured with Kyoto Prize

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Ms Spivak is amongst the recipients of this year’s Kyoto Prize.

She won the award in the Arts and Philosophy category for her “deep thinking on humanities against intellectual colonialism in relation to globalisation”.

About Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Kyoto Prize and father of computer graphics Ivan Sutherland

About Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

• Indian theorist, philosopher and University Professor at Columbia University
• A prolific scholar, she travels widely and gives lectures around the world.
• Best known for her contemporary cultural and critical theories to challenge the "legacy of colonialism" and the way readers engage with literature and culture.
• Known for the essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?"

Kyoto Prize

• The highest private award given in Japan for global achievement.
• Instituted by the Inamori Foundation, a charitable body founded in 1984.
• Presented annually in the fields of Advanced Technology, Basic Sciences and Arts and Philosophy.
• Each laureate receives a diploma, a gold Kyoto Prize medal and a cash gift of ¥50 million ($630,000).

Other recipients of Kyoto Prize:

• US computer scientist Ivan Sutherland, regarded as a father of computer graphics, won the Advanced Technology Prize
• Japanese molecular biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi was awarded the Basic Sciences Prize

Who is often called as the father of computer graphics?

• US computer scientist Ivan Sutherland

Ruchir Sharma bags Tata Literature First Book Award.

Author Ruchir Sharma was honored with the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award for his book Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles.

The book gives a clear picture of the shifting balance of global economic power and how it will play out for emerging nations and the West.

Who among the following will be conferred with Gomant Vibhushan Award for the
year 2012-13 by the Goa government?

Raghunath Mashelker
The Goa Government has decided to honour a renowned Goan legend and eminent
scientist Dr.Raghunath Mashelker by conferring the prestigious Gomant Vibhushan
Award for his contribution to science and technology. This is the highest state
civilian award declared by the state government to honour the son of the state.Dr.
Mashelker, a CSIR Bhatnagar Fellow is presently also the President of Global
research Alliance, a network of publicly funded R and D institutes from Asia pacific,
Europe and USA with over 60,000 scientists.




Which among the following organisation constituted the Durgabai Deshmukh
Award for women’s development?
[A]Confederation of Women Entrepreneurs
[B]Self Employed Women's Association
[C]Central Social Welfare Board
[D]National Commission for women
Central Social Welfare Board
The Durgabai Deshmukh Award for women’s development was constituted in 1997
by Central Social Welfare Board, an autonomous organization of the Ministry of
Women and Child Development, Government of India, to honour the memory of its
founder chairperson Dr. Durgabai Deshmukh. President presented the award for the
years 2005, 2006 and 2007.The eighth Award for 2005 was jointly given to Mizoram
Hmeithai (Widows) Association and People’s Forum, Bhubaneswar. The Mizoram
Hmeithai (Widows) Association has been working to bring succour and relief to
thousands of widows and destitute women and hundreds of abandoned orphan
children. The People’s Forum, Bhubaneswar was awarded for its landmark services
in the rescue and rehabilitation of hundreds of mentally ill women and for its
exemplary work with women in distress. The ninth Award for the year 2006 was
awarded to Sumangali Seva Ashram of Bangalore. The main activities of the
Sumangali Seva Ashram are care, education and development of deserted, orphan
and needy children and socio-economic opportunities for development of women.
Snehalaya of Ahmednagar was awarded the tenth Award for the year 2007 for its
landmark work in the rehabilitation of women of red light areas and other destitute
women.


















the following are conferred with the Sant Kabir awards by President of India?
Weavers
The Sant Kabir Award is conferred on outstanding weavers who have made
valuable contribution in keeping alive the handloom heritage and also for dedication
in building up linkages between the past, present and future through dissemination
of knowledge on traditional skills and designs. Each award consists of one mounted
gold coin, one shawl, a certificate and a ‘tamrapatra’. Financial assistance of Rs. 6
lakh is also given to each awardee to innovate and create 10 new products of high
level of excellence, high aesthetic value and high quality.












ELA RAMESH BHATT---
Ela Ramesh Bhatt (born 7 September 1933) is the founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA) A lawyer by training, Bhatt is a part of the international labour, cooperative, women, and micro-finance movements who has won several national and international awards.

She was one of the founders of Women's World Banking in 1979 with Esther Ocloo and Michaela Walsh, and served as its chair from 1980 to 1998. She has served as Chair of the SEWA Cooperative Bank, of HomeNet, of the International Alliance of Street Vendors, and of WIEGO.^[1]

She was also a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation.

She was granted an honorary Doctorate degree in Humane Letters by Harvard University in June 2001. In 2012, she received a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa fromGeorgetown University and an honorary doctorate from Universite Libre De Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium.^[2] She also holds honorary doctorates from Yale and University of Natal.

Ela Bhatt was also awarded the civilian honour of Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1985, and the Padma Bhushan in 1986. She was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1977 and the Right Livelihood Award in 1984.

She was chosen for the Niwano Peace Prize for 2010 for her work empowering poor women in India.

On November 2010, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton honoured Bhatt with the Global Fairness Initiative Award for helping move more than a million poor women in India to a position of dignity and independence.

Ela Bhatt was honoured with the prestigious Radcliffe Medal on May 27, 2011 on Radcliffe day for her efforts in helping uplift women, which has had a significant impact on society.

In November 2011, Ela Bhatt was selected for the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development 2011 for her lifetime achievements in empowering women through grassroots entrepreneurship.^[3]

In June 2012, US Sectretary of State Hillary Clinton identified Ela Bhatt as one of her 'heroine'. She said, "I have a lot of heroes and heroines around the world and one of them is Ela Bhatt, who started an organisation called the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India many years ago"

 Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration, Academics and Management: 2012

The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee conferred on Smt. Tessy Thomas, the prestigious Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration, Academics and Management: 2012 at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan today. The President congratulated Smt. Tessy Thomas and said that she had made the country proud by her achievements. In a career spanning over 24 years, Smt. Tessy Thomas has contributed in various fields such as Guidance, Control, Inertial Navigation, Trajectory Simulation and Mission Design. She is also the Associate Project Director (Mission) for Agni-I, II & III systems. She has been associated with the Agni Programme right from their developmental stages. She has designed the guidance scheme for long range missile systems which is used in all Agni missiles. Currently, she is the Project Director of Agni –IV, which is a major project with state of the art technologies. The Agni-IV was successfully flight tested on 15th November, 2011. This is a state of the art system with range to launch mass ratio of 15% better than its equivalent missiles across the world. Smt. Tessy is Project Director (Mission) for the long range Agni – V System also and has successfully flight tested Agni – V on 19th April, 2012. She, as the Technology Director for Mission Design and System Analysis Group of Advances Systems Laboratory, has significantly contributed in the development of various systems associated with missiles technology. The Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award, instituted by the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management (LBSIM) honours each year an Indian, residing either in India or abroad, who is an exceptionally outstanding and distinguished business leader, management practitioner, public administrator, educator or institution builder for his/her sustained individual contributions and achievements of high professional order and excellence. The honour carries a cash award of Rupees Five Lakh plus a Citation and a Plaque. The Awardee’s name is inscribed on the Roll of Honour of LBSIM and he/she is designated as Lal Bahadur Shastri Fellow N. R. NARAYANA MURTHY WAS AWARDED NATIONAL LAL BAHADUR SHASTRI AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCE FOR YEAR 2001, FROM KALAM. Niryat Shree and Niryat Bandhu awards President of India Pranab Mukherjee with Union Minister for Commerce, Industry and Textiles Anand Sharma on 5 October 2012 presented awards to exporters on the occasion of the presentation of Federation of Indian Export Organisation’s (FIEO) Niryat Shree and Niryat Bandhu awards at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. The President gave away 52 awards — 46 Niryat Shree Awards was given to exporters for their performance in 12 different categories, which includes agriculture, plantation products; chemicals, drugs, pharmacy and allied products; engineering; gems and jewellery, handicrafts, carpets; textiles, leather, service providers; and 6 Niryat Bandhu Awards were given to Export Promotion Councils and Banks for their support to the exporting community. Among the Niryat Shree awardees that were presented a gold trophy was MIOT Hospitals Limited for being the highest foreign exchange earner in the country among all service providers. The award was received by company chairperson Mallika Mohandas. Reliance Industries was also awarded a gold trophy for earning the highest foreign exchange. PC Jewellers was awarded a silver trophy in the Gems and Jewellery category. In the Niryat Bandhu category for banks, the winners were Canara Bank which got gold trophy followed by Bank of India and Punjab National Bank getting silver and Bronze trophy respectively.