1) BAFTA TV Awards announced for the year 2016.
The British Academy Television Awards have been announced for the year 2016 by British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).
Leading Actress: Suranne Jones.
Leading Actor: Mark Rylance.
Supporting actor: Tom Courtenay.
Supporting actress: Chanel Cresswell.
Entertainment performance: Leigh Francis.
Male performance in a comedy programme: Peter Kay.
Female performance in a comedy programme: Michaela Coel.
BAFTA TV Fellowship Recipients: Ray Galton & Alan Simpson.
2) MP Tourism wins Best Indian Destination for Wildlife Award.
- Madhya Pradesh Tourism (MPT) received the Best Indian Destination for Wildlife Award. The award was presented by the Lonely Planet Group.
- Actress Amy Jackson presented the award to MPT at a function held in Mumbai.
- On behalf of MPT Chairman, his Officer on Special Duty (OSD), Vinod Kumar Amar received the award.
- The state government launched number of programmes for the conservation of flora and fauna because of which Kanha and Pench were regarded as the most beautiful national parks in Asia.
- Madhya Pradesh has 25 wild life sanctuaries including nine National Parks. Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Panna, and Satpura National Park are managed as project tiger areas.
About Lonely Planet:
- Lonely Planet is the largest travel guide book publisher in the world.
- The company is owned by American billionaire Brad Kelley`s NC2 Media, which bought it in 2013 from BBC Worldwide for 77 million US dollar.
- As of 2014, Lonely Planet`s largest office is located in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.
3) US President honours Indian-American elementary teacher Revathi Balakrishnan.
- US President Barack Obama has honoured an Indian-American elementary teacher Revathi Balakrishnan from Texas at the White House.
- She was honoured for her excellent work in the field of education as part of the ‘National Teacher of the Year Programme’.
About Revathi Balakrishnan:
- Ms. Balakrishnan teaches math classes in third through fifth grade at Patsy Sommer Elementary School, Texas. Prior to becoming teacher she was a systems analyst with Liberty Mutual for about 12 years.
- Balakrishnan has taught at ‘Sommer Elementary’ for six years before teaching at Forest North Elementary for three years. Earlier, she was also named as 2016 ‘Texas Elementary Teacher of the Year’.
4) Hockey India recommended Ritu Rani and V.R. Raghunath for Arjuna Award.
- Hockey India recommended Indian women’s team captain Ritu Rani and senior men’s team drag-flicker V.R. Raghunath along with Dharamvir Singh for Arjuna Award.
- It also recommended Sylvanus Dung Dung for Major Dhyan Chand Lifetime Achievement Award and veteran coach C.R. Kumar for Dronacharya Award.
C.R. Kumar:
He is best known for guiding the Indian junior men’s hockey team to glory in the 2011 Junior World Cup in Hobart when he had served as the team’s Head Coach.
He has also served as Assistant Coach of the Indian senior men’s team at the 1998 Utrecht World Cup and 2002 Kuala Lumpur World Cup.
Sylvanus Dung Dung:
- He was part of the Indian team that won the gold at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games wherein he had scored the golden goal against Spain.
5) President Pranab Mukherjee confers Florence Nightingale Awards to 35 Nurses.
- President Pranab Mukherjee has presented the National Florence Nightingale Awards to thirty-five nursing personnel from across the country.
- They were presented with the award at a function held in Rashtrapati Bhavan on the occasion of International Nurses Day (12 May).
About National Florence Nightingale Award:
- The Florence Nightingale Award was established by the Union Health Ministry to honour the selfless services rendered by Nurses with devotion, sincerity, dedication and compassion.
- These awards are given to the outstanding nursing personnel employed in Union, State/ Union Territories.
- Nurses working in government, voluntary organizations, mission institutions and the private institutions can apply with the due recommendation of concerned State Government.
- The awards carry 50000 rupees cash prize, a certificate, a citation certificate and a Medal.
- The award is named after Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing. She was born on May 12, 1820 and the day is celebrated as International Nurses Day all over the world.
6) Indian artist wins award at UN poster contest on N-disarmament.
- Anjali Chandrashekar, a New York-based designer and "artivist", won the third prize in UN Poster for Peace contest presented by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA) to raise awareness of the need for nuclear disarmament.
- Titled `Cutting Barriers through Peace`, the poster features a peace dove slicing through a nuclear weapon. Another poster `Break Free` by the Chennai girl, that shows doves flying out of a bird cage at the top of a nuclear weapon, received an honorable mention.
- She was appreciated by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for the poster depicts a peace dove slicing through a nuclear weapon.
- The 1st prize went to Ivan Ciro Palomino Huamani from Peru for his `Spinning Peace`, which features a nuclear weapon being unraveled into string which is then used to fly kites and balloons, and to jump rope.
7) Celina Jaitly has been honoured with the Harvey Milk Award.
- Bollywood actress Celina Jaitly has been honoured with the Harvey Milk Award.
- She has dedicated it to two Bangladeshi activists who were murdered and wants to share it with Indian LGBT activists Ashok Row Kavi, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohail, Sridhar Rangayan, Harish Iyer, The Naz Foundation, Humsafar Trust and Geeta Kumana.
- The award is in the name of Harvey Bernard Milk, an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. He won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
- She was flanked by Charles Radcliffe of the UN Human Rights Commission and Milk’s inspiring nephew, Stuart Milk.
8) U.R. Rao becomes first Indian to be given IAF Hall of Fame Award.
- Former ISRO Chairman and space scientist Prof Udupi Ramachandra Rao became the first Indian to be given ‘Hall of Fame’ Award by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF)
- Mr. Rao has been selected for the prestigious award for his outstanding contribution to the progress of astronautics within the framework of the IAF activities.
- The scientist will be presented with the certificate at the 67th International Astronautical Congress, which will be held in Guadalajara in Mexico on 30 September 2016.
Udupi Ramachandra Rao:
- U.R. Rao is the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation. He had served as Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from 1984 to 1994.
- Under his leadership, India had initiated the development of the geostationary launch vehicle GSLV and the development of cryogenic technology in 1991.
- He was also responsible for successful launch of INSAT satellites during his stint at ISRO.
- He also had served as the first Chairman of Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the ISRO.
- Presently, he is the Chairman of Governing Council of the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmadabad and he is also Chancellor of Indian Institute for Space Science and Technology (IIST) at Thiruvananthapuram.
9) IIT student Nandini Bhandaru wins Young Scientist Award of European Material Science Research Society.
- Nandini Bhandaru, a PhD student at IIT-Kharagpur has won the Young Scientist Award of the European Materials Research Society’s (E-MRS) for contribution to materials science.
- She had won the award for her outstanding contribution to materials science and nanotechnology, particularly nano-patterning of soft films and surfaces.
- Presently, Ms. Bhandaru is working at the Instability and Soft Patterning Laboratory of the institute IIT-Kharagpur. Her area of doctoral research is on nano-fabrication, including soft-lithography, polymer blend films, thin film dewetting and self-assembly.
Innovation proposed by Nandini on nanofabrication:
- She proposed an innovation through which possibility of fabricating nano scale patterned surfaces can be done at an extremely low cost and using an inherently simple methodology.
- With this technique, the fabrication costs of these surfaces can be reduced to one tenth of the current Photolithography or Electron Beam Lithography based methods which require high end expensive instrumentation.
10) South Korean author Han Kang wins 2016 Man Booker International Prize for `The Vegetarian`.
- South Korean author, Han Kang, has won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize for her novel ‘The Vegetarian’.
- With this Han becomes the first South Korean to win this prestigious literary prize. The writer and her British translator Deborah Smith will share the 72,000 dollars prize money.
- Han’s novel ‘The Vegetarian’ tells a story of a wife (Yeong-hye lead character) who decides to become a vegetarian. The decision provokes cruelty from her husband, and from her father, and obsession from her sister’s husband, as the woman, she dreams obsessively about becoming a tree.
- The novel was picked unanimously by the panel of five judges chaired by Boyd Tonkin. It was chosen amongst six other novels.