Who among the following writers won the 2017 Sahitya Academy Award for Hindi literature?

 

Indian anti-hunger activist Ankit Kawatra has honoured with the 2017 Queen’s Young Leaders award for his exceptional work in transforming the lives of others. Kawatra is among the 60 others from all 53 Commonwealth countries to be felicitated with the prestigious award by Queen Elizabeth (II) at a ceremony in Buckingham Palace in London on June 29, 2017. The honourees will also undergo a year-long mentoring and online learning by the University of Cambridge to build leadership capabilities and better their work towards the communities. He is the founder of Feeding India, a not-for profit organization that works towards solving problems of hunger, malnutrition and food wastage, mainly by redistributing extra food from restaurants, canteens, households, corporates etc. to help people in need.

David Grossman has become the first Israeli author to win the 2017 Man Booker International prize for his novel “A Horse Walks Into a Bar”. The novel was translated by Jessica Cohen and is published in Britain by Jonathan Cape. The book is an ambitious high-wire act of a novel that shines a spotlight on the effects of grief, without any hint of sentimentality. Since 2016, the Man Booker International Prize awards both the winning author and translator £25,000. To be considered for the prize, books had to be translated into English and published in the UK between May 1, 2016 and April 30, 2017.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur will confer a doctorate on former sprint queen PT Usha, who missed a medal by a whisker at the 1984, Los Angeles Olympics. The degree, Doctor of Science (honoris causa – a degree awarded as a mark of esteem) will be conferred on June 16 to mark the 50th convocation of the prestigious institute of the country. This is her second doctorate – in 2002, Kannur University had conferred D.Lit on her.

The Moortidevi Award is an annual literary award in India presented by the Bharatiya Jnanpith organization for a work which emphasizes Indian philosophy and culture. In 2003, the prize included an amount of Rs. 1 lakh (US$1,500), a plaque, a statue of Saraswati, and a shawl. The cash prize was raised to Rs. 2 lakh (US$3,000) in the year 2011 and to Rs.4 lakh (US$5,900) in the year 2013.L

Veteran Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee has been selected for France’s highest civilian award “Legion of Honour” for his outstanding contribution to cinema and theatre. With this, Chatterjee has become the first Bengali actor to be chosen for the award. The honour comes almost 3 decades after the same recognition was conferred on master director Satyajit Ray in 1987. Chatterjee has acted in several of Ray’s films including ‘Apur Sansar’, ‘Debi’,’ Aranyer Din Ratri’, ‘Ghare Bairey’ and ‘Ganashatru’. Earlier recipients of the Legion of Honour include sitar meastro Pandit Ravi Shankar, Amitabh Bachaan, Shahrukh Khan and Kamal Hasan. Chatterjee was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2012.

The Ministry of Rural Development has selected Vizianagaram as one among the 17 districts across the nation for the MGNREGA annual award for effective implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act during 2015-16. The award would be presented at the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA Sammelan to the district programme coordinator and District Collector on June 19, 2017 in New Delhi.

An Indian boy has won the world’s largest pre-college science competition in the US in the environmental engineering category for his project on biodegradation of pesticides. Prashant Ranganathan, a 12th grader from Jamshedpur, alongwith over 20 high school students from various parts of India, participated in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.