Current Affairs Awards & Honours

Kerala cartoonist Thomas Antony has won an international award, in the best caricature category. Antony is among the nine winners at the 13th edition of the World Press Cartoon awards, instituted by an organisationbased in Lisbon, Portugal. The awards are given to the best works published in 2017 in newspapers and magazines from around the world. According to World Press Cartoon website, the winners are from eight countries in three continents-- Europe, Asia and South America.

Indian botanist Kamaljit S. Bawa (president of Bengaluru-based non-profit Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment) received the prestigious Linnean Medal in Botany from the Linnean Society of London. Dr. Bawa is the first Indian to win the award ever since it was first constituted in 1888. The scientist is being recognised for his pioneering research on the evolution of tropical plants, tropical deforestation, non-timber forest products and for decades of work on the biodiversity of forests in Central America, the Western Ghats and the Eastern Himalaya.

Source- The Hindu

 Indian skipper Virat Kohli has emerged as the International Cricketer of the Year at the CEAT Cricket Ratings awards, which were presented in Mumbai. Batsman Rohit Sharma collected the award on behalf of Kohli.   Other CEAT Cricket Ratings awards Presented are:

1. International Batsman of the Year Award: Shikhar Dhawan (India). 2. International Bowler of the Year Award: Trent Boult (New Zealand).

3. T20 Bowler of the Year Award: Rashid Khan (Afghanistan). 4. Outstanding Innings of the Year Award: Harmanpreet Kaur (India).

5. Lifetime Achievement Award: Farokh Engineer (India). 6. T20 Batsman of the Year Award: Colin Munro (New Zealand).

7. Domestic Player of the Year Award: Mayank Agarwal (India). 8. U19 Player of the Year award: Shubman Gill (India). 9. Popular Choice Award: Chris Gayle (West Indies).

                                                                                                                                                  Source- AIR World Service

Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has been awarded the Clarivate Analytics India Innovation Award 2018 in the Government Research Organizations Category. This award yet again recognizes CSIR as the top innovator.

Every year, Clarivate Analytics (formerly the IP & Science division of Thomson Reuters) recognizes the most innovative companies in India according to patent-related metrics that get to the essence of what it means to be truly innovative.

Source- Press Information Bureau (PIB)

 

Minister for Women and Child Development, Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi presented the prestigious Nari Shakti Puraskar 2017 to the members of the INSV Tarini team in New Delhi. The Six-member all-women team led by Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi have received the Puraskar from the Minister.

The crew of the Indian Navy Sailing Vessel 'Tarini' is a part of the Indian Navy’s unique project 'Navika SagarParikrama', an all-women team circumnavigating the globe, promoting ocean sailing activities in the Navy and depicting Government of India'scommitment towards women empowerment.

Source- Press Information Bureau (PIB)

   

Polish author Olga Tokarczuk has won the Man Booker International Prize for her novel ‘Flights’. The novel, translated by Jennifer Croft, interweaves narratives of travel with explorations of the human body. It bagged the 67,000 US dollar prize after topping a shortlist of six titles, with Tokarczuk becoming the first Polish writer to win the award. The awards were announced at a ceremony in London. The head judge of the awards was Lisa Appignanesi.

Source- BBC News

Prajnesh Gunneswaran won the prestigious T.K. Ramanathan award for the year 2017-18 at the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA) annual day function at the SDAT tennis stadium. He received a cash prize of Rs. 30,000.

Source- The Hindu

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi has won the European Golden Shoe for the fifth time. The Argentina international claimed the prize after scoring 34 goals in La Liga this season, helping his club to a 25th league triumph. Messi also won the award last year, as well as in 2010, 2012 and 2013. Four-time winner Cristiano Ronaldo finished ninth in the rankings after scoring 26 goals for Real Madrid in La Liga.

Source- Hindustan Times

Asian, Arab, and women filmmakers scored big at the closing ceremony of the 71st Cannes Film Festival, while Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda took home the top prize -- the Palme d'Or. Kore-eda, in the festival's main competition for the fifth time, won the Palme d'Or for 'Manbiki Kazoku' (Shoplifters). Kore-eda is only the second Asian Palme d'Or winner this millennium (after Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul for 'Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives', 2010). This is the seventh time that a director from Asia has bagged the coveted trophy.

Other Awards:   1. The Best Director prize went to Poland's Pawel Pawlikowski for the wonderfully well-crafted black-and-white 'Cold War'. 2. The Franco-Indian co-production 'Sir', directed by debutante Rohena Gera, had won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution.  3. The section's top prize, the Grand Prix, went to the Brazilian comedy-drama Diamantino. 4. Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi (along with co-screenwriter Nader Saeivar) figured on the Cannes 2018 winners list with Se Rokh (3 Faces), which shared the Best Screenplay prize with Italian director Alice Rohrwacher's Lazzaro Felice (Happy as Lazzaro). Lazzaro, one of three women directors in the fray, joined Labaki among this year's winners. 5. The acting honours went to Italian Marcello Fonte. 6. Jury president Cate Blanchett announced a Special Palme d'Or to 88-year-old Jean-Luc Godard's 'The Image Book'.

  The Yatra, an Indian charity that organises 15-day train journeys around India to understand and build the India of smaller towns and villages through enterprise has won an award in London. Jagriti Yatra was among a series of worldwide charities and individuals recognised for their impact within their communities at the Asian Voice Charity Awards. Jagriti Yatra organises 15-day train journeys, covering 800 km for 400 young change-makers across India every year. It has created some of India’s foremost social entrepreneurs and pioneers of enterprise-led development that cuts across socio-economic boundaries in India.

About The Charity Awards in Brief:

The third annual Asian Voice Charity Awards in London, organised by Britain’s oldest Asian diaspora publication ‘Asian Voice’ and Europe’s first independent charity due diligence platform Charity, recognised winners from across Britain, Afghanistan, India, Tibet and attracted an audience from around 40 countries.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Source- The Hindu