People in News

Honors and Awards

33 year old Aravind Adiga won the 2008 Man Booker Prize for his debut novel 'The White Tiger'. Adiga is the fifth Indian to win the Prize after VS Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai.

ICC Cricketer of the Year Award: Shivnarine Chanderpaul (West Indies)
ODI player of the Year: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (India)
Test Cricketer of the Year: Dale Steyn (South Africa)
Emerging player of the year: Ajantha Mendis (Sri Lanka)
Umpire of the Year: Simon Taufel (Australia)
Woman Player of the Year Award: Charlotte Edwards (Britain)
The Spirit of Cricket Award: Sri Lanka

Dr Prakash Baba Amte, who manages an animal orphanage at Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, was conferred the Rajiv Gandhi Wildlife Conservation Award for 2006 on October 6, 2008. Earlier this year, Prakash Amte had won the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay award for community leadership.

Mr E Sreedharan, Managing Director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation won the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public administration, Academics and Management (2008)

The winners of the 10th Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence are:

Business Leader of the Year: AM Naik
Company of the year: Tata Steel
Business woman of the year: Shikha Sharma
Emerging company of the year: Welspun Guj. Stahl Rohren
Policy Change Agent of the Year: E Sreedharan
Business Reformer of the Year: Kamal Nath
Entrepreneur of the year: Dilip Shanghvi
Global Indian: Arun Sarin
Corporate Citizen: Dr Reddy’s Foundation
Lifetime Achievement: Ashok Ganguly

Ms Chanda Asani (51) of Chandigarh won the Neerja Bhanot Pan Am Award (2008) for her tremendous courage, audacity and compassion.

Renowned journalist and author Khushwant Singh won the National Amity Award 2008.

National Thermal Power Corporation won the Business Superbrand Award for 2008 on September 14, 2008.

International

North Delhi Power Limited, a power distribution company, won the International Palladium Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame Award for 2008 on October 6, 2008.

Mr AK Rastogi, Company Secretary of the NTPC, won the Golden Peacock Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance.

Renowned Punjabi singer Mr Malkit Singh was presented the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire on September 28, 2008.

Mr Sankaralingam Jagannathan and Ms Krishnammal, an activist couple from Tamil Nadu won the Right to Livelihood Award on October 1, 2008. The other awardees included Ms Amy Goodman, an American journalist, Ms Monika Hauser, a Swiss-born doctor, and Ms Asha Hagi, Chairperson of Save Somali Women and Children. The Award is also known as Alternative Nobel Prize.

Former Cuban President Mr Fidel Castro won the Humanitarian Award for 2008 on September 24. This is one of the highest awards given by South Africa. Mr Castro is the first non-African and the third ex-head of a state to win this award.

India-born steel tycoon Mr Lakshmi Niwas Mittal won the third Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award on September 8, 2008.