General Awareness Updates (Awards)- April 2015

General Awareness Updates April 2015

Awards & Honours


Indian Businesswomen in Forbes Asia’s 50 Power Businesswomen 2015
v      Arundhati Bhattacharya, CMD, State Bank of India
v      Chanda Kochchar, CEO, ICICI Bank
v      Akhila Srinivasan, MD/Non-Executive Director, Shriram Life Insurance/Shriram Capital
v      Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Founder, Chairman and MD, Biocon
v      Shikha Sharma, CEO and MD, Axis Bank
v      Usha Sangwan, MD, Life Insurance Corp. of India


British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards 2015
v      Best Film: Boyhood
v      Best Actress: Julian Moore for Still Alice
v      Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything
v      Best Director: Richard Linklater for Boyhood
v      Best Supporting Actor: J. K. Simmons for Whiplash
v      Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood
v      Best Foreign Language: Ida (Poland)


87th Academy Awards (Oscars)
v      Best Film: Birdman
v      Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything
v      Best Actress: Julian Moore for Still Alice
v      Best Director: Alejandro G. Inarritu for Birdman
v      Best Supporting Actor: J. K. Simmons for Whiplash
v      Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood
v      Best Film Editing: Whiplash
v      Best Original Screenplay: Birdman
v      Bst Adapted screenplay: The Imitation Game
v      Best Foreign Language: Ida (Poland)
v      Best Animated Film: Big Hero 6
v      Best Cinematography: Birdman
v      Best Costume: The Grand Budapest Hotel
v      Best Makeup: The Grand Budapest Hotel
v      Best Original Score: The Grand Budapest Hotel
v      Best Original Song: Glory (Selma)
v      Best Sound: Gravity
v      Best Sound Editing: American Sniper
v      Best Sound Mixing: Whiplash
v      Best Visual Effects: Interstellar
v      Best Production Design: The Grand Budapest Hotel
v      Best Documentary Feature: CitizenFour
v      Best Documentary Short Subject: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press1
v      Best Live Action Short Film: The Phone Call


Bhalchandra Nemade receives Jnanpith Award for 2014
Eminent Marathi litterateur Bhalchandra Nemade, whose 1963 novel Kosala (Cocoon) changed the dimensions of Marathi novel, was selected for 2014 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary honour in India.
Mr Nemade is the fourth Marathi writer to win the literary honour after V. S. Khandekar in 1974, V. V. Shirwadkar alias Kusumagraj in 1988, and Govind Karandikar alias Vinda Karandikar in 2003.
“Novelist poet, critic, academic, and a relentless advocate of the literary movements and the leader of the post-1960s Little Magazine movement, Mr Nemade has inscribed his name prominently in the annals of Indian literature,” the selection board said while announcing the award.
Born on May 27, 1938, in Sangavi village in Khandesh, Mr Nemade’s debut novel Kosala, written in just 16 days, established him as the enfant terrible of the Marathi literary world when he was just 25 years old. The narrative style of Kosala’s protagonist Pandurang Sangvikar, who like Mr Nemade moved from rural Maharashtra to Pune, had remarkable similarities with J. D. Salinger’s acclaimed Catcher in the Rye.
He has novels like Hool, Bidar (1967), Zarila (1977) and Zhool (1979) and poetry volumes, Dekhni and Melody to his credit among other critical essays. As a critic, he propagated Deshivad or a ‘theory of nativism’ that negated globalisation, asserting the value of a writer’s native heritage, and language. He was honoured with Sahitya Akademi award in 1991 for his volume of criticism, Teeka Swayamvara, and Padma Shri in 2011.
Graduating from Ferguson College in Pune in 1959, Mr Nemade completed his Master’s degree in Linguistics from Deccan College in Pune and in English Literature fromMumbai University in 1964. After receiving his PhD and DLit. degrees from North Maharashtra University, he taught English, Marathi, and comparative literature at Ahmednagar, Dhule and Aurangabad universities before teaching at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He retired from Mumbai University’s Gurudeo Tagore Chair for comperative literature studies.


Frei Otto becomes first posthumous winner of Pritzker Prize
German architect Frei Otto was named winner of the prestigious Pritzker Prize, one day after his death at the age of 89. Known for the lightweight tent-like structure of his designs, he was informed he had won architecture’s highest accolade shortly before his death.
Otto designed the distinct tented roof above Munich’s Olympic Stadium, which hosted the 1972 Summer Games and the 1974 World Cup final, a backdrop which became synonymous with the murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants during the games.
Due to receive his award in Miami at a ceremony in May, he commented before his death that he had “never done anything to gain this prize. My architectural drive was to design new types of buildings to help poor people, especially following natural disasters and catastrophes. So what shall be better for me than to win this prize? I will use whatever time is left to me to keep doing what I have been doing.”
Peter Palumbo, the chairman of the Pritzker prize jury, described Otto as a “titan of modern architecture” and a “distinguished teacher and author” who pioneered the use of modern lightweight structures for many uses. “He believed in making efficient, responsible use of materials and that architecture should make a minimal impact on the environment,” he said.
Born in 1925, Otto grew up in Berlin, where he later studied architecture. He flew in the Luftwaffe during the Second World War, and was interned in a prisoner of war camp in France after his plane was shot down. He resumed his studies after the war and spent time in the United States, where he visited the studios of iconic mid-century designers such as Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames and Frank Lloyd Wright.
As well as the roofing for the 1972 Olympics stadium in Munich, Otto also helped design the Japan pavilion at the Hanover Expo 2000 alongside another future Pritzker winner, Japan’s Shigeru Ban, who won the award in 2014.


Amartya Sen wins J. M. Keynes Prize
Noble laureate Professor Amartya Sen has been awarded the newly Charleston-EFG John Maynard Keynes Prize for the year 2015.
Professor Sen will receive 7,500 British pounds to commission a work of art and will give the annual Charleston-EFG Keynes Lecture at the Charleston Festival in theUnited Kingdom. The lecture for this year is scheduled for May 23 and the topic which it would deal with is ‘The Economic Consequences of Austerity’.
Amartya Sen is regarded as one of the elite thinkers and policy makers in the field of famine, poverty, economic liberalization, social justice, etc. He has had a profound impact on the formation of development policy throughout the world. Currently he is the Professor of Philosophy and Economics at the Harvard University inU.S..
The Charleston -EFG John Maynard Keynes Prize aims to honour an individual for exceptional and inter disciplinary talents in the spirit of famous British Economist John Maynard Keynes work and legacy.
Amartya Sen is also a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (1998) and the Bharat Ratna (1999).

Comments