AWARDS

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Social activist Aruna Roy gets Lal Bahadur Shastri award

• President Pratibha Patil presented the prestigious Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for
Excellence in Public Administration, Academia and Management to Aruna Roy, social
and political activist, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan .
• The award carries a prize of Rs. 5 lakh, a plaque and a citation stating that the award was
conferred on Ms. Roy for her “arduous journey and dedication towards the issue of the
common man.”
• It noted that the most significant of Ms. Roy's efforts had been the campaigns for
transparency 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 to
Information law and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act [now the Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act] by Parliament in 2005.”
• Instituted by the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management with a view to upholding
the vision of the late Prime Minister, each year the award honours an Indian, residing
either in the country or abroad, who is an exceptionally outstanding and distinguished
business leader, management practitioner, public administrator, education or institution
builder, for his or her sustained individual contributions and achievements of high
professional order and excellence.

Nobel for “test-tube baby” creator

• Robert Edwards, the British scientist whose pioneering research with his late colleague
Patrick Steptoe led to the birth of the world's first “test-tube baby'' in 1978, has won this
year's Nobel Prize for medicine.
• The Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, which awarded the prize worth ten
million 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 a
large proportion of humanity including more than 10% of couples worldwide,” it said in a
statement.

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 of
Manchester University were named joint winners of this year's Nobel Prize for Physics
for their “groundbreaking” work on experiments with graphene, a new form of carbon
with immense possibilities.
• At 36, Professor Novoselov, a British-Russian citizen, has been the youngest physicist
since 1973 to win a Nobel, a committee official said.
• Highlighting the significance of their work, the Prize committee said graphene could be
put to a number of practical uses.

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• “Since it is practically transparent and a good conductor, graphene could be used for
producing transparent touchscreens, light panels and maybe even solar cells,” it said.
• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences hailed graphene for its glittering potential in
computers, home gadgets and transport.
• This novel form of carbon comprises a single layer of atoms arranged in a honeycomb-
shaped lattice. 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 won
the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a chemical method that has allowed
scientists to test cancer drugs and make thinner computer screens.
• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the award honors their development of
palladium-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 of
pharmaceuticals and molecules used to make electronics.
• The awards were established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel -- the inventor of
dynamite -- 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 in
Chhattisgarh's Narainpur, have jointly won the 25th Indira Gandhi Award for National
Integration for the year 2009 for their services in promoting and preserving national
integration.
• The award, which consists of a citation and Rs.2.5 lakh, will be presented by Congress
president Sonia Gandhi at Teen Murti House on October 31, the death anniversary of the
former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.
• The award was instituted by the Congress in 1985 to recognise distinguished persons for
outstanding 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 most
renowned novelists of his generation, has won the Nobel Prize for Literature “for his
cartography 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). This
major work was again a political thriller and was loosely based on the dictatorship of
Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic between 1930 and 1961. Other well known
works 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 in
the Andes, Mr. Llosa situated violence “in the context of an older world where life is
brutal and in a society which is on the very fringe of the modern world”.

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Peace Nobel for Chinese activist
• Jailed Chinese political activist Liu Xiaobo, 54, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a
decision the Chinese government has criticised as “a blasphemy.”
• The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the award went to Mr. Liu, who is in prison for his
calls for political reform, “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human
rights in China.”
• “Prerequisitefor fraternity”
• “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection
between human rights and peace,” it said in a statement.
• “Such rights are a prerequisite for the fraternity between nations of which Alfred Nobel
wrote 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 50,300
saplings were planted at a village in less than an hour by 9,000 volunteers under a drive
supported 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 minutes
by 8,000 volunteers.

3 share Economics Nobel

• Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen of the United States and British-Cypriot Christopher
Pissarides won the 2010 Nobel Economics Prize for work on why supply and demand do
not always meet in the labour market and elsewhere.

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

• According to traditional theory, labour markets should work on their own, with job-
seekers finding 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 may
not find the employers looking to fill a position.

• For instance, a small cost faced by employers looking for labour may mean they decide
not to take on workers even though they need them.

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

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• Last year, Elinor Ostrom — the first woman to ever win such a prize — and Oliver
Williamson of the United States won the Economics Prize for their work on the
organisation 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 an
Honorary 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 semi-
autobiographical comic take on Jewish identity, is the surprise winner of this year's Man
Booker Prize.
• It was not the unanimous choice of the jury and, in the end, two of the five judges voted
against 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 Pierce
Instructor at the Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, United States.

• According to a release from the Shanmugha Arts, Sciences, Technology, Research

Academy (SASTRA) University, Dr. Zhang was the unanimous choice of the SASTRA
Ramanujan Prize Committee, comprising a panel of international experts, chaired by
University of Florida's Professor Krishnaswami Alladi, for making a profound influence
at 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 young
mathematicians in areas influenced by Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. The
age limit for the prize has been set at 32 because Ramanujan achieved so much in his
brief life of 32 years.

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

PM wants pace of developing scientific knowledge quickened

• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for quickening the pace of developing
scientific knowledge and application relevant to the needs of developing countries,
while cautioning against the development path followed by the industrialised nations.
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• Inaugurating the 21st general meeting of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing
World (TWAS), he said the challenges that the developing countries faced were similar,
whether in combating tropical diseases or transforming agriculture or tackling natural
disasters. “These problems of under-development do not receive adequate attention
in the advanced industrialised countries. Nor should we expect others to solve our
problems for us.”

• He paid homage to Pakistani Nobel Laureate Prof. Abdus Salam, who was the founder
of 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 cash
prize of $1,00,000, to renowned energy expert Jose Goldemberg of Brazil and the
India 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 the
57th National Film Awards-2009 ceremony at the Vigyan Bhavan.
• Dr. Ramanaidu holds the Guinness Record for producing the highest number of films in
his career spanning over four decades. His repertoire includes 134 films in almost all
major Indian languages and even English. Born in Andhra Pradesh, Dr. Ramanaidu
started as a character actor and made his debut as producer of Ramudu Bheemudu in
1963.
• Amid rousing reception, Amitabh Bachchan walked away with the award for the best
actor for his portrayal of a 13-year-old schoolboy in the Hindi film Paa. This is the fourth
national 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 director
R. 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 was
collected by director and producer Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.
• This year's award list included several new categories based on the recommendations of
the expert committee set up under filmmaker Shyam Benegal.
• Kutty Srank (Malayalam) won the top honour for the best feature film. It also bagged
award in four other categories — best cinematography, best screenplay, best costume and
a special jury recognition, which it shared with the Hindi film Kaminey and the
Malayalam film Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja.
• In the special jury award category for the best director, Shaji N. Karun was presented the
Swarna Kamal. For the best popular film providing wholesome entertainment, the
Swarna 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 done
Abba (Hindi) directed by Shyam Benegal; in the best children's film category the award
was 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.

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• The award for the best child artist went to D.S. Kishore and Sreeraam for their portrayal
as ‘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 and
female playback singers, while cameraperson Anjuli Shukla walked away with the best
cinematography award for Kutty Srank. She is the first woman to win the award in this
category.
• A thunderous applause greeted Aasna Alam, a visually challenged girl, for her role in the
Malayalam film Kelkkunnundo. Nikita Bhagat won the special mention for her debut
film 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 jury
award was shared by Kaminey, Kutty Srank and Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja. In the non-
feature film category, The Postman directed by M. Manohar, and Bilal by Sourav Sarangi
won 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 liberties
group, will confer the 2010 Pioneer Award on researcher Hari Prasad, who was recently
released on bail after having been jailed for his security work on electronic voting
machines.

Microsoft sets Limca record

• The fall of a chip sets off a cascading effect. As the chips lined up in formations fall, a
wave is created and vibrant colour pattern emerges. It was not a mean task at Microsoft's
Hyderabad 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 of
the general availability of Windows 7 and the effort enabled Microsoft storm into the
Limca Book of Records for the first ever dominoes display of its kind in India. The
Microsoft Dominoes effect required 7,000 wooden dominoes, each weighting 12 gm and
placed 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., announced
the winners in the five categories of the Infosys Prize 2010.
• The prize for excellence in Mathematical Sciences was awarded to Chandrashekhar
Khare, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
He won the prize for his “fundamental contribution” to number theory, particularly the
solution 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 of
Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.
• Professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Sandip Trivedi, won
the prize in the Physical Sciences category for “finding an ingenious way” to solve two of
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the most outstanding puzzles of superstring theory — what is the origin of dark energy
and 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 outstanding
contributions in social development.
• Chewang Norphel, a 74-year-old civil engineer from Ladakh, was presented the award
for 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 and
May — the most crucial period of sowing.
• Chunibhai Vaidya, a nonagenarian from Ahmedabad, was given the award for outstanding
contribution in the field of constructive work. The oldest living Gandhian, Mr. Vaidya has
been active in many movements in Gujarat and Rajasthan for betterment of the poor and
the marginalised. He has also authored several books.
• The award for development and welfare of women and children was given to Shakuntala
Choudhary, a nonagenarian from Assam.
• The award for promoting Gandhian values outside India was given to Lia Diskin from
Brazil. .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 for
Asia' award. This award is based on nominations from public and private sector
economists, analysts, bankers, investors and other experts.
• The award is from ‘Emerging Markets', the daily newspaper of record for the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
• It may be recalled that Mr. Mukherjee was rated one of the best Finance Minister in the
world in 1984 as well, the statement said.

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