Award and Prizes: July 2010

Perelman rejects award

• After taking a three-month timeout, Russia's math whizz Grigori Perelman has finally turned down a $1,000,000 prize he won for having solved a century-old puzzle.

• The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) in March awarded its Millennium Prize of $1 million tothe reclusive mathematician for proving the 106-year-old Poincaré conjecture, a theorem about the nature of multidimensional space.

• The eccentric Russian genius said the decision to give him the prize was unfair, as U.S. mathematician Richard Hamilton of Columbia University equally contributed to the proof. Dr. Perelman used a technique developed by Dr. Hamilton, to solve the Poincare conjecture.

• In 2006, Dr. Perelman refused to accept the Fields Medal, which is considered equal to the Nobel Prize.Sangeet Natak Akademi announces Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskars for 2009

• The Sangeet Natak Akademi has announced the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskars for 2009.

• These are awarded to artistes “who have shown/demonstrated conspicuous talent in the fields of music, dance and drama.”

Young outstanding practitioners up to the age of 35 are eligible for the annual Puraskar. thefollowing are the recipients of the Puraskar for 2009:

Music:-

Omkar Shrikant Dadarkar – Hindustani vocal; Murad Ali – Hindustani instrumental – sarangi; Sanjeev Shankar and Ashwani Shankar (joint award) – Hindustani instrumental – shehnai; C.S. Sajeev – Carnatic vocal; Mysore A. Chandan Kumar – Carnatic instrumental – flute; V. Balaji – Carnatic instrumental – mridangam; Anil Srinivasan – creative and experimental music; and Moirangthem Meina Singh other major traditions of music – Nata Sankirtana of Manipur.

Dance:-

Ragini Chander Shekar – Bharatanatyam; Monisa Nayak – Kathak; Hanglem Indu Devi – Manipuri; Chinta Ravi Balakrishna – Kuchipudi; Lingaraj Pradhan – Odissi; Menaka P.P. Bora – Sattriya; Manjula B. Murthy – Mohiniattam; Swamimalai K. Suresh (music for dance) – Bharatanatyam nattuvangam and vocal.

Theatre:-

Abanti Chakraborty and Sukracharya Rabha – direction; Mukta Vasant Barve, Palani Murugan and Teekam Chandra Joshi – acting; Milind Srivastava – allied theatre arts – lighting; Juhi Babbar – allied theatre arts – costumes; and S. Gobi – (major traditions of theatre) – Bhagavata Mela of Tamil Nadu.

Traditional/folk/tribal dance/music/theatre and puppetry:

Reshma Musale – Lavani and Tamasha, Maharashtra; K. Nellai Manikandan – folk dance, Tamil Nadu; Zohmingliana – tribal dance and music, Mizoram; Takhellambam Shyamkanhai Singh – Wari Leeba, Manipur; Sooraj Nambiar – Koodiyattam, Kerala; Shahjan Ahmad Bhagat – Bhand Pather, Jammu and Kashmir; Nazia Sayeed – Odissi music, Orissa; and Lala Bhat – Kathputli, Rajasthan.

Paid news' interferes with concept of free, fair and objective press: Pratibha Patil

• President Pratibha Patil said the recent phenomenon of ‘paid news' could distort news and this interfered with the concept of a free, fair and objective press.

• Speaking after presenting the 4th Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards, the President delved into the history and relevance of the Indian media and the challenges it faced in today's constantly changing world.

• The awards were given to 29 categories, comprising political reporting, business, sports, environmental and entertainment journalism, investigative journalism and on-the-spot reporting.

• Siddharth Varadarajan, chief of the Delhi Bureau of TheHindu, was selected for the Journalistof the Year award in the Print Category for his extensive reportage on the India-U.S. nucleardeal, the placing of India's civil nuclear reactors under the International Atomic Energy Agencysafeguards and the exemption granted to India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

• Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief of Times Now, was selected for Journalist of the Year in the Broadcast Category.

• Harish Damodaran of The Hindu Business Line won the award for the Best Non-Fiction Book in English for his work, “India's New Capitalists.”

• Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta announced a new award category for“Journalism of Courage.” It was given posthumously to Indian Express correspondent VijayPratap Singh, who died of the injuries he sustained in a bomb blast in Allahabad on July 12.

• Tilak award for Sheila Dikshit

• This year's Lokmanya Tilak Award will be given to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

• This was announced by president of the Lokmanya Tilak Smarak Mandir Trust, Deepak Tilak,. The award is given every year by the trust. It consists of a gold medal, a memento, a citation and Rs.1 lakh. The ceremony will take place on August 1 at the Tilak Smarak Mandir on the occasion of the 89th death anniversary of Lokmanya Tilak. The award was established in 1983.

• The award is being given to Ms. Dikshit in recognition of her contribution to politics, Mr. Tilak said.

Konkani litterateur Ravindra Kelekar presented Jnanpith Award 2006

• Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar presenting the prestigious Jnanpith Award to octogenarianKonkani litterateur Ravindra Kelekar.

• The 42nd Jnanpith Award for 2006 carried a citation, shawl, srifal, a bronze idol of Vagdevi Saraswati and a cash prize of Rs. 7 lakh.• Ms. Kumar congratulated Mr. Kelekar and said that his literature reflected culture, principles ofnon-violence and Buddha's teachings.

Pattnaik wins Sand Sculpture Championship for 5th time• Renowned Indian sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik has won the first prize at the 8th International Sand Sculpture Championship in Berlin for his sculpture that showcased the effects of global warming.

• Pattnaik's sculpture that had a crying tree trunk and three monkeys saying, “You don't listen, You don't talk, You don't see, Don't put heads on sand, act now,” won the maximum votes.

Jaipur's Jantar Mantar inscribed in the World Heritage List

• The Jantar Mantar in Jaipur is now a World Heritage Monument. The 34th session of the WorldHeritage Committee, presently underway in Brasilia, has inscribed Jantar Mantar in the UnitedNations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's World Heritage List. Thirty-threecountries across the world had submitted 32 sites for consideration this year.

• The UNESCO website observes that these structures ‘designed for the observation ofastronomical positions with the naked eye, embody several architectural and instrumentalinnovations.'• Located outside the city palace, this large stone observatory with its many instruments was builtby Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II in the 18th century. It is one of the one of the four existingastronomical observatories in India. The others are located in Varanasi, Delhi and Ujjain. Thefifth one built in Mathura is not extant. The Samrat Yantra in Jaipur is one of the largestsundials in the world, with its gnomon raising about 73 feet above its base.

• India had also submitted the Matheran Light Railway line for consideration as an extension of the Mountain Railways of India, which includes the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, Nilgiri railway and Kalka-Shimla Railway that are already inscribed as heritage sites.

• The other international sites added to the list this year include, 11 Australian convict sites, thepalace ensemble at ad-Dir'iyah in Saudi Arabia, Tabriz historic bazaar complex in Iran and thenatural site of the Central Highlands in Sri Lanka.• So far, about 890 properties are included in the list for their “outstanding universal value.” Thecommittee also oversees the disbursement of about $4 million annually from the World HeritageFund.

KCHR, British Museum share award

• The British Museum and the Thiruvananthapuram-based Kerala Council for Historical Research(KCHR) have been jointly awarded this year's international partnership award by the BritishAcademy.

• The award, which carries a grant of £30,000, is aimed at promoting research collaborationbetween two partner-institutions, one Indian and one British.

• The research proposal, titled “Indian Ocean Trade: the Archaeology of Technology,” by RobertaTomber of the British Museum and P.J. Cherian of the KCHR, was based on majorarchaeological research work at the Pattanam site in central Kerala carried out over the last fourseasons.

• Professor Cherian is the Director of the KCHR and of the Pattanam excavations, while notedhistorian K.N. Panikkar is the Chairman of the KCHR. The self-governing and independentBritish Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the socialsciences. Established by Royal Charter in 1902, it has fellowship of over 800 scholars.

Leelavathi Award for Simon Lehna Singh

• Well-known physicist-turned author, journalist and television producer of Indian origin SimonLehna Singh has been selected by the International Mathematical Union for the LeelavathiAward in recognition of his outstanding contribution to public outreach in mathematics.

• Named after the immortal mathematical treatise of the great Indian mathematicianBhaskaracharya, the award carries a cash prize of Rs.10 lakh and a citation.

• It will be presented at the closing ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians(ICM), which will be held in Hyderabad from August 19 to 27.

National Film Awards revamped

• In a bid to give regional language films a bigger chance to bag the spotlight at the National FilmAwards, the government has decided to introduce a two-tier selection system.

• The decision has been taken on the basis of recommendations submitted by an expert committeeheaded by filmmaker Shyam Benegal.

• Five regional panels will be constituted to select the best films in their own areas, followingwhich a central jury will make the final award decision. The northern region will include filmsin English, Punjabi, Dogri, Urdu, Bhojpuri, Rajasthani and central Indian languages, while thewestern region will consist of films made in Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati and Konkani.

• The southern part of the country has been divided into two regions, of which one will includeTamil and Malayalam films, while another will consist of films made in Kannada, Telegu andTulu. Films made in Bengali, Assamese, Oriya and the dialects spoken in the northeastern partof the country will all be included in the Eastern region.

• The central jury will have a chairperson and ten other members, of which half will be the chairsof the regional juries.

• All screenings will be held in Delhi.

E.C.G. Sudarshan shares Dirac Medal with Italian

• An Indian-American professor at the University of Texas, Austin, has won the prestigious DiracMedal for his contribution to the understanding of theoretical physics.

• Ennackal Chandy George Sudarshan, 78, shares the Dirac 2010 with Italian physicist NicolaCabibbo.

• Professor Sudarshan's contributions to theoretical physics include the discovery of the V-Atheory of weak interactions, which opened the way for full description of the unifiedelectroweak theory.

• The Dirac Medal of ICTP is awarded by the Abdus Salam International Centre for TheoreticalPhysics (ICTP) on renowned physicist P.A.M Dirac's birthday — August 8. It was first awardedin 1985. The winners also receive a prize of $5,000.

• One of the criteria that the recipients must qualify is that they should not have won a Nobelprize, the Fields Medal or the Wolf Foundation prize till the Dirac Medal was conferred onthem.

• Both Professor Cabibbo and Professor Sudarshan were passed over by the Nobel committeeearlier. The Italian physicist in 2008 and Professor Sudarshan in 1979 and 2005.

• The ICTP was set up by Pakistani-born physicist in 1964 to foster advanced studies andresearch in physics and mathematics, especially in developing countries.

Major Jyotin Singh awarded Ashok Chakra posthumously

• Major Laishram Jyotin Singh, who sacrificed his life in the February terror attack in Kabul thisyear, has been awarded the Ashok Chakra, the highest peacetime gallantry award announced ,the eve of 64th Independence Day.

• The Ministry of Defence also announced the Kirti Chakra posthumously to Captain DavinderSingh Jass and Superintendent of Police Vinod Kumar Choubey.

• It is probably the first time that the Ashok Chakra has been awarded to an officer for an act ofbravery while on a foreign land.

• Major Jyotin Singh, 38, from Manipur, was commissioned in the Army Medical Corps in 2003and selected to serve on deputation to the Indian Medical Mission in Kabul, Afghanistan.

BEL staffer gets Shram Ratna award

• Nagaraja, Senior Technical Assistant of the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore, hasbeen chosen for the Shram Ratna for 2008, the country's highest award given by the Ministry ofLabour and Employment.

• The award carries a cash prize of Rs.2 lakh and a “Sanad” (citation).

• The Ministry also awarded Shram Bhushan to four persons, Shram Vir/Shram Veerangana to 17and Shram Shree/Shram Devi Awards to 30 persons. The Shram awardees include two women.• The Prime Minister's Shram Awards is being given to altogether 52 workers employed in thedepartmental undertakings and public sector undertakings of the Central/State governments andprivate sector units employing 500 or more workers.

• The awards are in recognition of their distinguished performances, innovative abilities,outstanding contributions in the field of productivity and exhibition of exceptional courage andpresence of mind.

Parliamentarians must work to meet people's expectations”

• With disruptions in Parliament apparently weighing heavily on her mind, President PratibhaPatil said its functioning must meet an “exacting standard” to set an example for the rest of theWorld.• Ms. Patil was speaking after conferring the Outstanding Parliamentarian Awards to the formerUnion Minister, Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi; senior Samajwadi Party leader Mohan Singh; andBharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009respectively.

Modern Family,' ‘Mad Men' sweep the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards

• ‘Mad Men,' a dark period drama set in the 60's New York, and comedy series ‘Modern Family,'a mockumentary about three families, won the top honours at the 62nd Primetime EmmyAwards.• ‘Mad Men' won the Emmy for best television drama for the third time in a row, while ‘ModernFamily' took home the trophy for outstanding comedy at the awards presented.\

• ‘Top Chef,' hosted by Indian model Padma Lakshmi, won the Emmy for outstanding realityseries, beating off competition from ‘The Amazing Race,' which has been winning in thecategory for the past seven years.

AWARDS AND PRIZES: September 2010

The Hindu, Saregama to institute M.S. Subbulakshmi award

• The Hindu and Saregama India will institute ‘The Hindu Saregama M.S. SubbulakshmiAward' at a function titled ‘Remembering MS Amma'.

• The award, in the name of the legendary musician, will be presented annually to apromising Carnatic vocalist.

Irom Sharmila honoured with Tagore award

• Irom Sharmila — who has been observing a fast-unto-death since November 4, 2000,demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act — was given theRabindranath Tagore Award-2010

• The award, instituted by the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), carriesRs.51 lakh in cash, a gold medal, a citation and a shawl.

Somewhere wins Golden Lion in Venic

• Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, the tale of an actor who sees the emptiness of his existencethrough the eyes of his child, walked away with the top Golden Lion prize at the Venicefilm festival.

• The jury, headed by director Quentin Tarantino, unanimously chose Ms. Coppola's film asthe best movie at the 11-day annual festival.

MTV awards agog for Lady Gaga

• Flamboyant diva Lady Gaga's Bad Romance won best video at the MTV awards, sealing herreputation as the larger-than-life queen of the pop scene.• The Video of the Year gong was one of eight MTV Moonmen for Lady Gaga (24) who, true toform, changed from elaborate dress to elaborate dress throughout the ceremony in Los Angeles.

Best Feature Film Award: Kutty Srank

• National honour:A still from ‘Pazhassi Raja,' which fetched the best audiography awardfor Resul Pookutty and the best background score award for Ilayaraja.

• Kutty Srank, a Malayalam drama starring Mammooty, expressing the differentperspectives of three women about the man in their lives, was the biggest winner at theNational Film Awards for 2009, sweeping the best feature film award as well as fourother categories.

• . the best popular film 3 Idiots, the best film on national integration Delhi-6, best film onsocial issues Well Done Abba and the best debut film Lahore.

• Amitabh Bachchan bagged his third award for best actor, this time for his role as a dying13-year old in Paa. \“.• The best actress award went to Ananya Chatterjee for her role in the Bengali filmAbohoman, which also won the best direction prize for Rituparna Ghosh.

• The best film award in the non-feature category was shared by The Postman and Bilal.

• Malayalam films managed to pick up 10 awards in the feature categories, with Oscarwinner Resul Pookutty winning an award for best audiography in Kerala Varma PazhassiRaja. Music director Ilayaraja bagged the best background score award for the same film.The only Tamil film to capture the spotlight was Pasanga, which bagged awards for itschild actors and screenplay dialogues, as well as in its own language category.

Award in the name of the ‘Queen of Song'

• Young Carnatic vocalists will now have another strong reason to strive for excellence —an award in the name of the ‘queen of song'. ‘The Hindu Saregama M.S. SubbulakshmiAward', was instituted

Pallav Bagla to get David Perlman

• Indian journalist Pallav Bagla has been selected for the David Perlman Award forExcellence in Science Journalism given annually by the American Geophysical Union(AGU). This is the first time an Indian has been selected for this honour.• The recognition is for Mr. Bagla's articles on the impact of climate change on HimalayanGlaciers

Pride of India Award given to U.K.'s first Asian judge

• Sir Mota Singh, the United Kingdom's first Sikh and Asian judge, knighted by QueenElizabeth II earlier this year, received the ‘Pride of India Award' 2009, instituted by theIndia International Foundation (IIF).

• Indian High Commissioner Nalin Surie presented the trophy at the 6th annual awards ofthe Foundation in the presence of a distinguished gathering, including non-resident Indianindustrialist Lord Swraj Paul.

Manmohan has built partnership: U.S

• A top United States official described Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as “a man ofuncommon decency and grace” who led the way in building Indo-U.S. partnership, as hepresented the leader the 2010 World Statesman Award.

Malayalam, Urdu writers claim Jnanpith award

• Malayalam litterateur O.N.V. Kurup and Urdu poet Akhlaq Khan Shahryar were chosenfor the Jnanpith Award for 2007 and 2008 respectively. The selection board chaired byOriya writer and Jnanpith winner Sitakant Mahapatra made the choices for the topliterary awards.

Peepli Live is India's official entry for Oscars

• Peepli Live, the Hindi film produced by actor Aamir Khan, will be India's official entry tothis year's Academy Awards (Oscar) in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

• Announcing this by selection committee chairman K.S. Sethumadhavan

3 women chosen for Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize

• For the first time three women figure in the list of nine scientists chosen for the prestigious ShantiSwarup Bhatnagar Prize 2010.

• The awards were announced at a function to mark the foundation day of the Council of Scientificand Industrial Research.

• The award for S&T Innovations for Rural Development 2009 will go to the Indian OilCorporation's Research and Development Centre in Faridabad.

• CSIR Director-General Samir Brahmachari said the award carries a cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh, acitation and a plaque and will be presented by the Prime Minister later this year.

• The awardees for Biological Sciences are Sanjeev Galande of the National Centre for CellScience, Pune and Shubha Tole of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.

Pratibha presents Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowships, awards

• Six eminent personalities were conferred Akademi Fellowships for 2009 and 33 artistsreceived the Akademi awards.

• The highest honour of Akademi Fellowship (Akademi Ratna) was conferred on LalgudiG. Jayaraman, Shreeram Lagoo, Yamini Krishnamurti, Kamlesh Dutt Tripathi andKishori Amonkar. They received Rs. 3 lakh besides a citation and a shawl. The eminentrepresentatives from the fields of music, dance and theatre honoured with the awardreceived Rs.1 lakh.

AWARDS OCTOBER 2010

Social activist Aruna Roy gets Lal Bahadur Shastri award

• President Pratibha Patil presented the prestigious Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award forExcellence in Public Administration, Academia and Management to Aruna Roy, socialand political activist, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan .• The award carries a prize of Rs. 5 lakh, a plaque and a citation stating that the award wasconferred on Ms. Roy for her “arduous journey and dedication towards the issue of thecommon man.”

• It noted that the most significant of Ms. Roy's efforts had been the campaigns fortransparency and the people's right to information, which began in the early 1990s, and,more recently, the right to work campaign.• “These [two] broad-based collective campaigns helped ensure the passage of the Right toInformation law and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act [now the MahatmaGandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act] by Parliament in 2005.”

• Instituted by the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management with a view to upholdingthe vision of the late Prime Minister, each year the award honours an Indian, residingeither in the country or abroad, who is an exceptionally outstanding and distinguishedbusiness leader, management practitioner, public administrator, education or institutionbuilder, for his or her sustained individual contributions and achievements of highprofessional order and excellence.

Nobel for “test-tube baby” creator

• Robert Edwards, the British scientist whose pioneering research with his late colleaguePatrick Steptoe led to the birth of the world's first “test-tube baby'' in 1978, has won thisyear's Nobel Prize for medicine.

• The Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, which awarded the prize worth tenmillion Swedish Kronor, described his work as “a milestone of modern medicine.”

• “His work has made possible the treatment of infertility, a medical condition that affects alarge proportion of humanity including more than 10% of couples worldwide,” it said in astatement.

Physics Nobel for groundbreaking work on wonder material

• A day after winning the Nobel Prize for Medicine, two scientists in Britain struck it“rich” again at Stockholm when Russian-born Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov ofManchester University were named joint winners of this year's Nobel Prize for Physicsfor their “groundbreaking” work on experiments with graphene, a new form of carbonwith immense possibilities.

• At 36, Professor Novoselov, a British-Russian citizen, has been the youngest physicistsince 1973 to win a Nobel, a committee official said.

• Highlighting the significance of their work, the Prize committee said graphene could beput to a number of practical uses.

• “Since it is practically transparent and a good conductor, graphene could be used forproducing transparent touchscreens, light panels and maybe even solar cells,” it said.

• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences hailed graphene for its glittering potential incomputers, home gadgets and transport.

• This novel form of carbon comprises a single layer of atoms arranged in a honeycombshapedlattice. Just one atom thick, it is the world's thinnest and strongest nano-material,almost transparent and able to conduct electricity and heat.

3 win Nobel for inventing chemical tool

• American Richard Heck and Japanese researchers Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki wonthe 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a chemical method that has allowedscientists to test cancer drugs and make thinner computer screens.

• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the award honors their development ofpalladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic systems.

• The academy called that one of the most sophisticated tools available to chemists today,and one that is used by researchers worldwide and in commercial production ofpharmaceuticals and molecules used to make electronics.

• The awards were established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel -- the inventor ofdynamite -- and are always handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of his death in 1896.

Award for Rahman, Ramakrishna Mission Ashram

• Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman and the Ramakrishna Mission Ashram, located inChhattisgarh's Narainpur, have jointly won the 25th Indira Gandhi Award for NationalIntegration for the year 2009 for their services in promoting and preserving nationalIntegration.• The award, which consists of a citation and Rs.2.5 lakh, will be presented by Congresspresident Sonia Gandhi at Teen Murti House on October 31, the death anniversary of theformer Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.

• The award was instituted by the Congress in 1985 to recognise distinguished persons foroutstanding contributions to the cause of national integration

Literature Nobel for Mario Vargas Llosa

• Mario Vargas Llosa (74), celebrated Peruvian-Spanish author and one of the mostrenowned novelists of his generation, has won the Nobel Prize for Literature “for hiscartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance,revolt, and defeat”.

• Works: His other profoundly influential novel was The Feast of the Goat (2000). Thismajor work was again a political thriller and was loosely based on the dictatorship ofRafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic between 1930 and 1961. Other well knownworks include Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977), The War of the End of the World,(1981) and, more recently, Death in the Andes (1993).\• This last novel — focussing on deaths associated with the militant Shining Path group —also reflected some of Mr. Llosa's concern for the plight of the downtrodden. In Death inthe Andes, Mr. Llosa situated violence “in the context of an older world where life isbrutal and in a society which is on the very fringe of the modern world”.

Peace Nobel for Chinese activist

• Jailed Chinese political activist Liu Xiaobo, 54, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, adecision the Chinese government has criticised as “a blasphemy.”

• The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the award went to Mr. Liu, who is in prison for hiscalls for political reform, “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental humanrights in China.”

• “Prerequisitefor fraternity”

• “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connectionbetween human rights and peace,” it said in a statement.• “Such rights are a prerequisite for the fraternity between nations of which Alfred Nobelwrote in his will.”

Guinness record: 50,300 saplings planted in an hour

• The ‘cold desert' of Leh entered the Guinness Book of World Records after 50,300saplings were planted at a village in less than an hour by 9,000 volunteers under a drivesupported by Buddhist monks to mark the ‘green' Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

• The earlier record was held by Peru, where 40,000 saplings were planted in 60 minutesby 8,000 volunteers.

3 share Economics Nobel

• Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen of the United States and British-Cypriot ChristopherPissarides won the 2010 Nobel Economics Prize for work on why supply and demand donot always meet in the labour market and elsewhere.

• The prize highlights one aspect of a policymaking problem which has bedevilledgovernments of advanced countries since the oil shocks of the 1970s: highunemployment which has risen even higher because of the global economic crisis. Thejury lauded the trio “for their analysis of markets with search frictions”, which helpsexplain how unemployment, job vacancies, and wages are affected by regulation andeconomic policy.

• According to traditional theory, labour markets should work on their own, with jobseekersfinding available jobs, thus creating balance.

• The three Nobel laureates, however, help show with their model — the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides, or DMP model — that markets do not always work in this way.

• Owing to small glitches, buyers may find it difficult to find sellers and job-seekers maynot find the employers looking to fill a position.

• For instance, a small cost faced by employers looking for labour may mean they decidenot to take on workers even though they need them.

• The trio's model helps explain why unemployment persists and proves stubbornlyresistant even when economic circumstances improve. It also helps identify areas forgovernment policy action, pinpointing for instance what governments can do toimprove employment and prevent long-term unemployment through training.

• Last year, Elinor Ostrom — the first woman to ever win such a prize — and OliverWilliamson of the United States won the Economics Prize for their work on theorganisation of cooperation in economic governance.

Cambridge confers Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall on Aiyar• Exactly 47 years after he left Cambridge University, Mr. Aiyar returned to be made anHonorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, his alma mater, in recognition of his contribution to the“diplomatic and political life of the world's greatest democracy.”

• He joins the ranks of figures such as renowned scientist Stephen Hawking.

Man Booker Prize throws up surprise winner• British writer and journalist Howard Jacobson's novel The Finkler Question, a semiautobiographicalcomic take on Jewish identity, is the surprise winner of this year's ManBooker Prize.

• It was not the unanimous choice of the jury and, in the end, two of the five judges votedagainst it.

• Manchester-born Mr. Jacobson, who lives in London, beat two of the bookies' favourites— Tom McCarthy's C and Emma Donoghue's Room — to win the £50,000 prize.

• Mr. Jacobson's previously longlisted novels are Kalooki Nights and Who's Sorry Now?

SASTRA Ramanujan Prize for Wei Zhang of Harvard

• The 2010 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize will be awarded to Wei Zhang, a Benjamin PierceInstructor at the Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, United States.

• According to a release from the Shanmugha Arts, Sciences, Technology, ResearchAcademy (SASTRA) University, Dr. Zhang was the unanimous choice of the SASTRARamanujan Prize Committee, comprising a panel of international experts, chaired byUniversity of Florida's Professor Krishnaswami Alladi, for making a profound influenceat the young age of 29 in a wide range of areas in mathematics.

• Established in 2005, this annual prize is for outstanding contributions by very youngmathematicians in areas influenced by Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. Theage limit for the prize has been set at 32 because Ramanujan achieved so much in hisbrief life of 32 years.

• The $10,000 prize will be awarded at the International Conference on Number Theoryand Automorphic Forms at SASTRA University in Kumbakonam, on December 22,Ramanujan's birthday. Dr. Wei has made far-reaching contributions by himself, and incollaboration with others, to a broad range of areas in mathematics, including numbertheory, automorphic forms, L-functions, trace formulas, representation theory andalgebraic geometry, the release said.

PM wants pace of developing scientific knowledge quickened• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for quickening the pace of developingscientific knowledge and application relevant to the needs of developing countries,while cautioning against the development path followed by the industrialised nations.

• Inaugurating the 21st general meeting of the Academy of Sciences for the DevelopingWorld (TWAS), he said the challenges that the developing countries faced were similar,whether in combating tropical diseases or transforming agriculture or tackling naturaldisasters. “These problems of under-development do not receive adequate attentionin the advanced industrialised countries. Nor should we expect others to solve ourproblems for us.”

• He paid homage to Pakistani Nobel Laureate Prof. Abdus Salam, who was the founderof the TWAS (renamed now as the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World).

• Earlier, Dr. Singh presented the Ernesto Illy Trieste Science Prize, which carries a cashprize of $1,00,000, to renowned energy expert Jose Goldemberg of Brazil and theIndia Science Prize, with a cash award of Rs. 25 lakh, to eminent statistician Prof. C.R.Rao.

Cinema has a stake in societal stability'• President Pratibha Patil presented the Dadasaheb Phalke Award to D. Ramanaidu at the57th National Film Awards-2009 ceremony at the Vigyan Bhavan.

• Dr. Ramanaidu holds the Guinness Record for producing the highest number of films inhis career spanning over four decades. His repertoire includes 134 films in almost allmajor Indian languages and even English. Born in Andhra Pradesh, Dr. Ramanaidustarted as a character actor and made his debut as producer of Ramudu Bheemudu in1963.

• Amid rousing reception, Amitabh Bachchan walked away with the award for the bestactor for his portrayal of a 13-year-old schoolboy in the Hindi film Paa. This is the fourthnational award for Mr. Bachchan, who first bagged it for his role in Saat Hindustani,followed by one for Agneepath and more recently for Black.

• His onscreen father in Paa and son in real life Abhishek Bachchan went up with directorR. Balki to collect the award for the Best Hindi Film Paa.

• The Nargis Dutt Award for the best feature film on national integration for Delhi 6 wascollected by director and producer Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.

• This year's award list included several new categories based on the recommendations ofthe expert committee set up under filmmaker Shyam Benegal.

• Kutty Srank (Malayalam) won the top honour for the best feature film. It also baggedaward in four other categories — best cinematography, best screenplay, best costume anda special jury recognition, which it shared with the Hindi film Kaminey and theMalayalam film Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja.

• In the special jury award category for the best director, Shaji N. Karun was presented theSwarna Kamal. For the best popular film providing wholesome entertainment, theSwarna Kamal went to 3 Idiots (Hindi) directed by Raj Kumar Hirani.

• A Rajat Kamal, the award for the best film on social issues, was bagged by Well doneAbba (Hindi) directed by Shyam Benegal; in the best children's film category the awardwas shared by Putaani Party (Kannada) and Keshu (Malayalam).

• The Swarna Kamal for the best direction was given to Rituparno Ghosh for Abohoman(Bengali), and Ananya Chatterjee won the best actress for the same film.

• Farooque Sheikh bagged the Rajat Kamal for the best supporting actor for Lahore, and Paa fetched the award to Arundhati Naag in the best supporting actress category.

• The award for the best child artist went to D.S. Kishore and Sreeraam for their portrayalas ‘Anbukkarasu' and ‘Jeeva' in Pasanga (Tamil). The Rajat Kamal for the best Tamil film was won by Pasanga.

• Rupam Islam and Neelanjana Sarkar were presented with the awards for best male andfemale playback singers, while cameraperson Anjuli Shukla walked away with the bestcinematography award for Kutty Srank. She is the first woman to win the award in thiscategory.

• A thunderous applause greeted Aasna Alam, a visually challenged girl, for her role in theMalayalam film Kelkkunnundo. Nikita Bhagat won the special mention for her debutfilm Vilay posthumously.

• The award for the best music direction (songs) was presented to Amit Trivedi for Dev D(Hindi) and for the best background score (a new category) to Ilayaraja. The special juryaward was shared by Kaminey, Kutty Srank and Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja. In the nonfeaturefilm category, The Postman directed by M. Manohar, and Bilal by Sourav Sarangiwon the Swarna Kamal.

• The Swarna Kamal for the best film critic was presented to C.S. Venkiteswaran(Malayalam).

Indian wins U.S. award for EVM security work

• The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a leading civil libertiesgroup, will confer the 2010 Pioneer Award on researcher Hari Prasad, who was recentlyreleased on bail after having been jailed for his security work on electronic votingmachines.

Microsoft sets Limca record

• The fall of a chip sets off a cascading effect. As the chips lined up in formations fall, awave is created and vibrant colour pattern emerges. It was not a mean task at Microsoft'sHyderabad Centre. The falling chips made a dazzling display of the logo of Windows 7,the operating system made available on October 22 last year.

• This was the way a team of 22 Microsoft employees celebrated the first anniversary ofthe general availability of Windows 7 and the effort enabled Microsoft storm into theLimca Book of Records for the first ever dominoes display of its kind in India. TheMicrosoft Dominoes effect required 7,000 wooden dominoes, each weighting 12 gm andplaced barely 0.2 inches apart sidewise and 0.5 inches lengthwise to create the logo.

Winners of Infosys Prize 2010 announced

• The Infosys Science Foundation, established by Infosys Technologies Ltd., announcedthe winners in the five categories of the Infosys Prize 2010.

• The prize for excellence in Mathematical Sciences was awarded to ChandrashekharKhare, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).He won the prize for his “fundamental contribution” to number theory, particularly thesolution he found for the Serre conjecture, stated the citation of the jury, headed by

Srinivasa S.R. Varadhan, Professor of Mathematics, and Frank J. Gould, Professor ofScience at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.

• Professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Sandip Trivedi, wonthe prize in the Physical Sciences category for “finding an ingenious way” to solve two ofthe most outstanding puzzles of superstring theory — what is the origin of dark energyand why there is no mass-less scalar particle — simultaneously.

Nonagenarians among four Jamnalal Bajaj awardees

• President Pratibha Patil presented the Jamnalal Bajaj Awards for 2010 for outstandingcontributions in social development.

• Chewang Norphel, a 74-year-old civil engineer from Ladakh, was presented the awardfor application of science and technology for rural development. His ‘artificial glacier'has helped farmers in the dry and difficult region of Ladakh get water supply in April andMay — the most crucial period of sowing.

• Chunibhai Vaidya, a nonagenarian from Ahmedabad, was given the award for outstandingcontribution in the field of constructive work. The oldest living Gandhian, Mr. Vaidya hasbeen active in many movements in Gujarat and Rajasthan for betterment of the poor andthe marginalised. He has also authored several books.

• The award for development and welfare of women and children was given to ShakuntalaChoudhary, a nonagenarian from Assam.

• The award for promoting Gandhian values outside India was given to Lia Diskin fromBrazil. .The winners were chosen from 124 nominations across the world.

Finance Minister of Asia award for Pranab

• Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has won this year's ‘Finance Minister of the Year forAsia' award. This award is based on nominations from public and private sectoreconomists, analysts, bankers, investors and other experts.

• The award is from ‘Emerging Markets', the daily newspaper of record for the World Bankand the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

• It may be recalled that Mr. Mukherjee was rated one of the best Finance Minister in theworld in 1984 as well, the statement said.

Award and Prizes: November 2010

Award for Super30 founder

• Super30 founder and mathematician Anand Kumar has been selected for the Maulana AbdulKalam Azad Shiksha Puraskar, one of the top awards in Bihar, in recognition of his contributionto education.

Environment award for Indian

• Washington: Rajesh Shah of Bangalore has been honoured with the prestigious 2010 IntelEnvironment Award for his efforts to solve global safe drinking water and sanitation crises.

Three Indian art forms on UNESCO's heritage list

• The UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation)inscribes three Indian performing-art forms, the Mudiyettu, a ritual theatre of Kerala; theChhau dance, a tradition from eastern India; and the Kalbelia folk songs and dances ofRajasthan in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.This annual list, unlike the World Heritage list that focuses on monuments and naturalsites, spotlights performing art forms of outstanding value and are vulnerable due to lackof support.

• The Mudiyettu, the ritual dance drama annually performed after the harvest of summercrops in Kerala, is more than 250 years old. This art form involves elaborate drawings onfloors, masks made of areca nut fronds and playing of drums. What was once wellpatronised, now has only three traditional families of regular performers.

• The Chhau dance, known for its crafted masks and mock combat movements, is prevalentin the tribal parts of Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal. The economic backwardness ofthe area, an extensive survey by the Sangeet Natak Akademi reveals, has had a negativeimpact on the artists of the Chhau and their art. Similarly, the Kalbeli community ofsnake charmers from Rajasthan are also impacted. As a result, their songs and dances,which are characterised by movements and music that evoke serpents, are affected andare in need of support.

• It makes it obligatory on the various governments (132 of them) who have ratified theUNESCO's Convention for Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and whonominate heritage elements, to ensure that necessary measures, including legal andfinancial, are undertaken to safeguard them. On its part, the UNESCO would facilitateinternational cooperation, provide financial assistance and extend support for studies,provision of experts, training and creation of infrastructure.

• This year, the UNESCO received 54 nominations for the Representative List. Thesubsidiary body, after reviewing them advised seven nominations to be withdrawn,rejected one and recommended the rest for the inscription. Six nominations were receivedfor the Urgent Safeguarding List of which two were withdrawn, one was rejected andthree were recommended for inscription. All the three nominations proposed by India forthe Representative List were recommended.

• The Fifth Session of the UNESCO Inter-governmental Committee for the Safeguardingof the Intangible Cultural Heritage, that is under way in Nairobi, accepted thisrecommendation. So far, about eight Indian heritage elements, including these three, havebeen inscribed in the representative list.

IPI India award for Tehelka

• Weekly magazine Tehelka has been selected for the IPI India Award for Excellence in Journalism,2010, for outstanding journalistic work.

• The award, comprising a cash prize of Rs. 2 lakh, a trophy and a citation, will be presented nextmonth.

Augment exports to Latin America: Scindia

• Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia has emphasised theneed for a shift in export from northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere in line withsouth-south cooperation. He said that while advanced nations would show an importgrowth of around 0.9-1 per cent in future, developing economies would exhibit an importgrowth between 4.5 and 5 per cent.

• Mr. Scindia was speaking at a function organised by the Federation of Indian ExportOrganisations to present the Niryat Shree and the Niryat Bandhu awards 2008-09. Theawards honour outstanding exporters, export promotion councils, commodity boards,export development authorities, banks and other agencies.

• Reliance Industries bagged the highest foreign exchange earner Niryat Shree awardfollowed by Hyundai Motors India and Bajaj Auto. The Niryat Bandhu gold trophy wasbagged by Bank of India, silver by Canara Bank and bronze by Punjab National Bank.

Mukesh Ambani bags Global Vision Award

• Billionaire businessman and Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani has received theGlobal Vision Award instituted by the Asia Society for helping to promote understanding betweenAsians and Americans.

Indira Gandhi peace prize for Lula

• Outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been selected for the IndiraGandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for 2010, according to a newsrelease from the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust.

• Mr. Lula was selected for the award by an international jury, chaired by Prime MinisterManmohan Singh, mainly for promoting strong ties among the developing countries,promoting inclusive growth and for his contribution to the cause of India-Brazilpartnership.

Over 300 films to be screened at IFFI

• Over 300 movies from 61 countries will be screened over the next 10 days at the 41st International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2010, to be inaugurated by Railway MinisterMamata Banerjee .

• Producer-director Yash Chopra will be the chief guest and actor Ajay Devgan, the guestof honour. Film stars from India and abroad will be present at the festival.

• From this year, three Indian films will make it to the International competition category.

Walesa to accept Nobel for Liu Xiaobo

• Warsaw: Polish Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa offered on Monday to accept this year'saward on behalf of the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

Aga Khan Award for 5 projects

• Projects as diverse as a textile factory in Turkey, a school built on a bridge in China and awetlands project in Saudi Arabia are among the winners of the 2010 Aga Khan Award forArchitecture, according to a statement.

• India too figured in this year's list of nominees for the 11th cycle of the Aga Khan Awardfor Architecture which were given at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. Theentry from India, ‘Palmyra House' in Alibag, near Mumbai, owned by industrialist Anandand Anuradha Mahindra, and designed by Mumbai-based architect Bijoy Jain, is includedin the 19 nominees from across the world.

• The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established in 1977 by His Highness the AgaKhan, to enhance the understanding and appreciation of Islamic culture as expressedthrough architecture.

• The Award is organised on the basis of a three-year cycle and is governed by a SteeringCommittee chaired by the Aga Khan. Prizes totaling up to $500,000 — constituting thelargest architectural award in the world — are presented every three years to projects.

Bopanna, Qureshi get award

• Their message of ‘Stop War Start Tennis' fetched Indian Davis Cupper Rohan Bopannaand his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Of TheYear award during the ATP World Tour Finals.

• The two players have been playing with the message of ‘Stop War Start Tennis' for quitesome time on the Tour and in Grand Slams.

• They rose to prominence by reaching the final of the US Open where they ended runnersupto the legendary Mike and Bob Bryan.

• While Qureshi has received this award in the past as well when he teamed up with Israel'sAmir Hadad in 2002, it's a first for Bopanna.

Award and Prizes: December 2010

Gautam Ghosh's film bags Golden Peacock Award

• Bengali filmmaker Gautam Ghosh's film “Moner Manush”(The Quest), an Indo-Bangladeshjoint production, bagged the coveted Golden Peacock Award for the Best Film at the 41stInternational Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2010.

Silver Peacock Award

• The Silver Peacock Award for the Best Director went to Susanne Bier of Denmark for her film‘In a Better World.' ‘Just Another Love Story' from India and ‘The Boy' from New Zealandwere the joint winners of the Special Jury Award.• The Best Actor Award of Rs.10 lakh went to the Turkish actor Guven Kirac for his role in thefilm ‘The Crossing' while the Best Actress Award was won by Magdalena Boczarska of Polandfor her role in ‘Little Rose.'

$100,000 award for Indian NGO

• An Indian NGO, Manav Seva Sansthan (MSS), was given a $100,000 award for its work amongdisadvantaged communities.

• The prize, given by the United Kingdom-based international charity organisation, The STARSFoundation, specifically recognised the MSS campaign against child-trafficking along theIndia-Nepal border.

NTPC bags best financial performance award

• NTPChas bagged PSU excellence award 2010. Arup Roy Choudhury, CMD, and A. K. Singhal,Director (Finance),NTPC, received the award at a summit in New Delhi recently. VilasraoDeshmukh, Union Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, presented the award toNTPC in the Best Financial Performance category.

• The PSU Excellence Awards were organised under the aegis of Department of PublicEnterprises, Indian Chamber of Commerce and Deloitte.

India's Nicole Faria is Miss Earth 2010

• India's Nicole Faria has been crowned Miss Earth Talent 2010 after beating 17 other contestantsat a talent competition in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

• Vietnam's representative Luu Thi Diem Huong was voted among the top five contestants withher performance of folk dances that are inspired by traditional dances in the northern, centraland southern region of the country.

Liu awarded Peace Nobel

• In the centrepiece of a simple, moving ceremony watched by an audience of 1,000 people,among them Norway’s king and queen and a clutch of fellow Chinese dissidents, the chairmanof the Nobel committee, Thorbjoern Jagland, placed the citation and medal on a simple, blue

upholstered seat on a small row of chairs to the right of the hall’s stage.

• It is the first time since 1936, when the German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky wasstopped by Nazi authorities from travelling to Oslo, that the peace prize has been awarded inthis way. On three other occasions -- Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, Lech Walesa in 1983 andAndrei Sakharov in 1975 -- family members have had to collect the prize instead.

• While Liu was jailed for 11 years last year for subversion, his wife remains under house arrest,meaning no one could collect the award for him.

• The decision to award the prize to Liu, a former university academic radicalised by the 1989Tiananmen Square protest -- Mr. Jagland said the award was “dedicated to the lost souls of 4June”.

Karan Thapar wins Asian Television award again

• The Asian Television award for the Best Current Affairs Presenter was presented to KaranThapar of the CNN-IBN at a glittering ceremony in Singapore.

• This is the fifth time that Mr. Thapar is winning the Best Current Affairs Presenter Award in the15-year history of the Asian Television awards. He won the award in 1999, 2003, 2005 and2007.

Ghana daily bags award for excellence

• The New Crusading Guide, a daily newspaper from Ghana in West Africa, has been named thewinner of Rajasthan Patrika Group's K.C. Kulish International Award for Excellence in PrintMedia Journalism 2009. The daily has been chosen on the basis of a series of reports on Ghana'sMadhouse and Chinese sex mafia.

• The award, set up in the name of the Patrika founder, carries a cash component of 11,000 USdollars and a trophy. The theme for this year's award was “Inclusive development”. Besides themain award, seven merit awards also have been announced.

SCOPE awards presented

• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the chief executives of public sector enterprises(PSEs) and presented the ‘SCOPE Awards' for excellence and outstanding contribution to publicsector management and ‘MOU Awards' for excellence in performance for the year 2008-09.

• The SCOPE (Standing Conference of Public Enterprises) excellence award in the individualcategory was conferred on NTPC Chairman & Managing Director Arup Roy Choudhury asoutstanding chief executive while Coal India Limited (CIL) Chairman P. S. Bhattacharyya waspresented the ‘Special Award of the Jury'.

Veerendra Kumar, Nanjil Nadan among Sahitya Akademi winners

• The former Union Minister, M.P. Veerendra Kumar is among the 22 who have won this year'sSahitya Akademi awards for the best works in literature. Mr. Kumar has won the award for histravelogue ‘Haimavathabhuvil' in Malayalam.

• The other winners include eight poets, four novelists and three short story writers.

• The winning poets are: Arun Sakhardande [Konkani], Vanita [Punjabi], Mithila Prasad Tripathi[Sanskrit], Sheen Kaaf Nizam [Urdu], Laxman Dubey [Sindhi], Mangat Badal [Rajasthani],Aurobindo Uzir [Bodo] and Gopi Narayan Pradhan [Nepali].

• The novelists are Esther David [English], Bani Basu [Bengali], Dhirendra Mehta [Gujarati] andM.Borkanya [Manipuri].

• Under the category of short stories, Nanjil Nadan [Tamil], Uday Prakash [Hindi] and Manoj[Dogri] have been chosen for the award.

• Among others, Rahamat Tarikere [Kannada], Ashok R.Kelkar [Marathi], Basher Bashir[Kashmiri] have won the awards for best books of criticism, Pathani Pattnaik [Oriya] under thecategory of ‘autobiographies' and Bhogle Soren [Santali] under ‘plays.'

• Secretary of the Akademi, Agrahara Krishna Murthy, said the winners in Maithili and Teluguwould be declared soon.

• The awards are in the form of caskets containing an engraved copper plaque, a shawl and acheque for Rs. One lakh.

Saikat Dutta, Vinita Kamte among RTI award winners

• Saikat Dutta of The Outlook magazine and Vinita Kamte, wife of killed Mumbai police officerAshok Kamte, are among the seven winners of this year's National RTI Awards, announced bythe Public Cause Research Foundation.

• The foundation also organised a ceremony to honour the 10 RTI activists who were killed thisyear.

• The awards were decided by a jury consisting, among others, of Infosys founder N.R. NarayanaMurthy; the former Chief Justice of India, J.S. Verma; journalist-editor Madhu Trehan; and theformer Chief Election Commissioner, J.M. Lyngdoh.

• Mr. Dutta received the Best RTI Journalist Award for using the Right to Information Act toexpose a Rs.2,500-crore scam in the export of rice.

• Ms. Kamte used the Act to ferret out information and documents relating to the November 26,2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, in which her husband and two other police officers werekilled. Ms. Kamte proved through the documents that her husband died, not because of“foolishness,” as suggested in official quarters, but because of the inefficient handling of thesituation by the State government.

Harvard professor receives SASTRA-Ramanujan Award

• Professor Wei Zhang, a Benjamin Pierce Instructor at the Department of Mathematics, HarvardUniversity, received the SASTRA-Ramanujan Award, instituted by the Shanmugha Arts ScienceTechnology and Research Academy (SASTRA) University to encourage path-breaking researchin Ramanujan Mathematics for 2010.

• Lakshmi Narayanan, Senior Professor, Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, presented theaward, carrying a prize of $10,000 and a citation, at the International Conference on NumberTheory and Automorphic Forms at SASTRA's Srinivasa Ramanujan Centre.

Lifetime Grammys for Julie Andrews, Dolly Parton

• Sound of Music star Julie Andrews, country singer Dolly Parton and jazz drummer Roy Hayneswill be honoured with lifetime achievement Grammy awards next year for their artisticcontribution to the recording medium.

• The artists will receive their golden gramophones at an event in Los Angeles on February 12,2011 a day before the 53rd annual Grammy Awards ceremony.

• The 75-year-old Ms. Andrews is best remembered for her roles in 1960s musicals like Sound ofMusic and Mary Poppins, for which she won a Grammy award. Ms. Parton (64) is known as the“Queen of Country Music” with 25 number-one singles. She has received seven GrammyAwards and a total of 45 Grammy Award nominations

Swaminathan conferred CNN-IBN Lifetime Achievement Award

• Veteran agricultural scientist M. S. Swaminathan has been conferred the CNN-IBN Indian ofthe Year 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award for his “outstanding leadership in the field ofagriculture that has contributed to ensuring food security for millions of Indians.”

• Special Achievement awards went to the Shillong Chamber Choir and the Indian Women'sRelay Team of Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, Ashwini Akkunji, Mandeep Kaur.

• J. Gopikrishnan, journalist, who was instrumental in exposing the 2G spectrum scam, washonoured with the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2010 – Special Achievement Award.

AWARDS JANUARY 2011and Prizes: January 2011SAIL chief gets ‘Icon of the year' award

• C. S. Verma, Chairman, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), received the ‘Icon of the year'award of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) .R. Bandyopadhyay,Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, presented the award on the inaugural day of the 52ndNational Convention of ICWAI. The award honours professionals who have been a role modelfor the profession by achieving success in the business enterprises that they have been involvedwith in the capacity of Chairman and Managing Direc

Manmohan says knowledge, not army might, determines a nation's strength

• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said making education a fundamental right was one of thespecial achievements of his government.

• Acknowledging the importance of private institutions like the Infosys Science Foundation thathad a large role to play in generating funds to reward excellence, Dr. Singh said: “The strengthof a nation is no longer determined by the might of its army. It comes from the quality ofcollective knowledge, the productivity of its working people, the creativity of its entrepreneursand the dedication of its professionals.”

• The Infosys Prize 2010 was presented for outstanding achievements in scientific research. Theawards were in five categories — Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering andComputer Science, Life Sciences and Social Sciences. The prize in each category comprises a24-karat gold medallion, a citation expounding the laureate's work and Rs. 50 lakh in cash (taxfree).

• The Infosys Science Foundation was set up in February 2009 by the management of Infosys.The corpus has increased from Rs. 45 crore to Rs. 100 crore with about half the amount comingfrom the management of Infosys.

• Professor Chandrashekhar Khare of the University of California, Los Angeles, got the award inthe Mathematical Sciences category, in recognition of his fundamental contributions to theNumber Theory particularly his solution of the Serre conjecture.

• Professor Sandip Trivedi of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research won the award in thePhysical Sciences category for finding an ingenious way to solve two of the most outstandingpuzzles of Superstring Theory simultaneously: What is the origin of dark energy of theuniverse? And why is there no massless scalar particle?

• Professor Ashutosh Sharma of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, won the award in theEngineering and Computer Science category for his fundamental contributions to mechanics,materials and manufacturing on small scale including self-organisation and instabilities, nanopatterningand functional multiscale interfaces.

• Chetan Chitnis of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology won theaward in the Life Sciences category for his pioneering work in understanding the interactions ofthe malaria parasite and its host, leading to the development of a viable vaccine.

• The Social Sciences category award was jointly presented to Professor Amita Baviskar of theInstitute of Economic Growth, in recognition of her contributions as an outstanding analyst ofsocial and environmental movements in modern India, and Professor Nandini Sundar of theDelhi School of Economics, in recognition of her contributions as an outstanding analyst ofsocial identities, including tribe and caste, and the politics of knowledge in modern India.

Bharat Jyoti Award for K.V. Raman

• Agricultural scientist K.V. Raman has been awarded the prestigious Bharat Jyoti Award of theIndia International Friendship Society for his contributions to science, technology anddevelopment.

• A former Chairman of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board under the Indian Councilof Agricultural Research, Dr. Raman was also Director of the B.V. Rao Centre for SustainableFood Security at the Chennai-based M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.

• The former Election Commissioner, G.V.G. Krishnamurthy, presented the award to Dr. Raman.

A.R. Rahman wins Critics' Choice award

• Music composer A.R. Rahman bagged the best original song trophy at the 16th Critics' ChoiceAwards for his number “If I Rise” in Danny Boyle's film 127 Hours. Written by RolloArmstrong and American artiste Dido, the song was performed by Rahman and Dido. Boyle,who went on to score eight Oscars with his Slumdog Millionaire, collaborated with Rahmanagain for 127 Hours, a biopic on the life of mountain climber Aron Ralston.

• Rahman, however, lost the best score trophy to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who got it fortheir The Social Network.

• The movie on the life of the Facebook founder also bagged top honours for the best film, thebest director and the best adapted screenplay.

Golden Globes “likes” Facebook film

• The Social Network, a film about Harvard-graduate Mark Zuckerberg's ultra-popular Facebookwebsite, swept up four awards at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards, even denying Indian musicalmaestro A.R. Rahman a second win at the forum.

• Other notable winners included The Social Network, for Best Motion Picture; Colin Firth forbest performance by an actor in The King's Speech; Natalie Portman for best performance by anactress in The Black Swan; The Kids are Alright, for best comedy or musical and Christian Balefor best actor in a supporting role in The Fighter. Paul Giamatti scooped up the laurel for BestActor in a comedy film for his role in Barney's Version.

• The Golden Globe Awards are sponsored by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association torecognise excellence in film, television both domestic and foreign. However, comedian andAwards Master of Ceremonies Ricky Gervais caused more than a chuckle when he lampoonedthe HFPA numerous times throughout the ceremony, ridiculing it in particular for its obscurityoutside of the Awards.

• The annual ceremony and dinner at which the Golden Globes are presented marks the start ofthe Hollywood film industry's awards season, and it culminates in the annual Academy Awards,otherwise known as the Oscars.

Padma Vibhushan for Brajesh, Premji

• Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the former National SecurityAdviser, Brajesh Mishra, Wipro chief Azim Premji, Telugu film celebrity A. Nageswara Rao,Art historian Kapila Vatsyayan, India's first woman news photographer Homai Vyarawalla andthe former Attorney-General, K. Parasaran, are among this year's 13 Padma Vibhushanawardees. The Padma Vibhushan, which is India's second highest civilian honour, has beenconferred posthumously on Gandhian and freedom fighter Lakshmi Chand Jain.

Rahman bags WEF Crystal Award

• Internationally renowned music composer A.R. Rahman was honoured with the Crystal Awardof the World Economic Forum (WEF) at the opening ceremony of its annual meet beingattended by 2,500 global leaders from the fields of business, government, art, culture and

religion.

• Mr. Rahman, 44, received the award, given to outstanding artists who use their talent for socialand charitable work.

AWARDS FEBRUARY 2011

and Prizes: February 2011O.N.V. Kurup gets Jnanpith Award

• Presenting the 43rd Jnanpith Award to poet O.N.V. Kurup Dr. Singh said that “appreciatingIndian culture should involve the understanding, acknowledgement and recognition of all thedifferent strands and hues of our composite cultural fabric.”

• Accepting the award, Prof. Kurup said though “any poet who writes in a regional language isvery much an Indian poet since his/her creative contributions merge into the common treasurestock of Indian poetry, unfortunately, the voice of the Indian bard does not often transcend theboundaries of his linguistic territory.”

Jayati Ghosh awarded ILO prize

• The International Labour Organisation's Decent Work Research Prize has been awarded toeconomist Jayati Ghosh and Professor Eve Landau.

• Dr. Ghosh, who teaches at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, is honoured for her majorcontributions to the analysis of socio-economic relationships and policy instruments for theadvancement of decent work.

• The prize carries a cash reward of $5,000.

• Dr. Ghosh has also been invited to make a presentation at a special ceremony to be held duringthe ILO's Governing Board session scheduled in Geneva for November.

JNU professor gets Pushkin Gold Medal for promotion of ties• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has awarded the prestigious Pushkin Gold Medal toProfessor Arun Mohanty of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) for his contribution tostudies on Russia and promotion of bilateral cultural ties and friendship.

• Prof. Mohanty graduated from the famed Moscow State University and spent 30 years of hislife in Russia, teaching at Russian varsities and working at Russian and Indian newspapers.

• The Pushkin Gold Medal is the highest honorary award given in recognition of outstandingcontributions to the promotion of the Russian language and culture. More than 10 Indianscholars and public figures have been awarded the medal since its institution in 1977.

Nayudamma award for Dr. Shanta

• V. Shanta, chairperson of the Cancer Institute, Adyar, Chennai, has been selected for the Y.Nayudamma Memorial Award for 2010.

• Dr. Shanta has been chosen “in recognition of her tireless efforts for over five decades towardsbringing solace to lakhs of men, women and children, afflicted with the dreaded disease in thecountry,” P. Vishnu Murthy, founder and managing trustee of the Dr. Y. Nayudamma MemorialTrust, said in a release.

First woman officer to get gallantry award in Army

• Major Mitali Madhumita became the first woman officer to receive a gallantry award in theArmy. She was honoured along with 21 Army personnel for acts of bravery and distinguishedservice at the military station during the South Western Command Investiture Ceremony.

• Major Madhumita became the first woman officer to get the Sena Medal (Gallantry).

Kalam inaugurates biotechnology meet

• The former President of India, A.P.J Abdul Kalam, inaugurated a one-day national conferenceon ‘Biotechnology and National Development: achievement and challenges' in Ranchi.

• During the inaugural ceremony, Mr. Kalam released a book dedicated to Professor A.B Prasad.

• The conference aims at creating a strong platform for research and development to achievetechnological excellence in existing and next-generation devices and communication systems.

• After the opening ceremony, students discussed various issues related to infectious diseases,cancer biology and biotechnology.