(Current Affairs) Awards and Prizes | October: 2013

Awards and Prizes

Ramon Magsaysay Awards for the year 2013

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation on 24 July 2013 announced the Ramon Magsaysay Awards for the year 2013 to three individuals and two organizations for changing their societies for the better. Afghanistans first woman governor Habiba Sarabi and a Myanmar civil society organiser Lahpai Seng Raw, who both helped families displaced by conflict in their home nations, are among five winners of Asias equivalent of the Nobel Prize for the year 2013.

A Brief insight into the list of the Awardees

1. Habiba Sarabi of Afghanistan honoured for helping build a functioning local government and pushing for education and womens rights in Afghanistans Bamyan Province despite discrimination and poverty.

2. Lahpai Seng Raw of Myanmanr honoured for helping the rehabilitate work in damaged communities amid armed conflict.

3. Ernesto Domingo, a 76-yearold Physician honored for dedicating his career to pushing for the poors access to Health services and for groundbreaking and successful advocacy of neonatal Hepatitis vaccination that has saved millions of lives in the Philippines.

4. The Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (Corruption Eradication Commission), Indonesias independent anticorruption Government body, was honored for a 100-percent conviction rate in the 169 cases it fought between 2004 and 2010, during which it recovered more than US 80 million dollars in stolen assets.

5. The Nepalese group Shakti Samuha (Power Group), formed by survivors of human trafficking, has recognised for helping fellow victims by setting up halfway homes and emergency shelters.

About the Ramon Magsaysay Award

The Manila-based Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, named after a popular Philippines President who was killed in a plane crash, was established in 1957 to honor people or groups who change communities in Asia for the better. Every year the award is presented in a ceremony conducted on 31 August in Manila and the winners are honoured with US 50000 dollars prize money. More than 300 people and groups, including the US Peace Corps and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have been recognized since 1958.

IIFA Award 2013 at Macau

Vidya Balan on 6 July 2013 got the Best Actress award at 14th IIFA (International Indian Film Academy) awards 2013 held in Macau for her portrayal of a pregnant woman in search of her husband in Kahaani while Ranbir Kapoor was Named Best Actor for Barfi.

Barfi also bagged the award for best film. In fact, it won 9 awards in technical category- Best Cinematography (Ravi Varman I.S.C.), Best Background Score (Pritam), Best Screenplay (Anurag Basu and Tani Basu), Best Production Design (Rajat Poddar), Best Song Recording (Eric Pillai), Best Sound Design (Shajith Koyeri), Best Sound Mixing (Debajit Changmai), Best Costume Designing (Aki Narula and Shefalina) and Best Make-Up (Uday Serali). Barfi is a romantic comedy about a mute and deaf man and his relationship with two women. Ranbir, who played a deaf-mute boy in Barfi was not present at the ceremony and the award was accepted on his behalf by the films director Anurag Basu.

Other highlights of IIFA 2013

Gangs of Wasseypur won two awards, one for Best Action (Shyam Kaushal) and the other for Best Dialogue (Zeishan Quadri, Akhilesh, Sachin Ladia and Anurag Kashyap) was shared with Juhi Chaturvedi for Vicky Donor.

 The award for Best Editing was won by Kahaani (Namrata Rao) and Best Choreography went to Ganesh Acharya for Agneepath.

Ek Tha Tiger won the award for Best Special Effects (Pankaj Khanopur, Sherry Bharda and Vishal Anand).

Where is Macau?

Macau is one of the two special administrative regions of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), the other being Hong Kong.

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