Recent 6 months news in Awards

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) organised the inaugural Indian Athletics Awards 2025 in New Delhi. The awards were presented by Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

Neeraj Chopra and Parul Chaudhary were named the Best Male and Female Athletes of the Year, respectively, receiving a cash prize of ₹10 lakh each. Shanavaz Khan and Pooja Singh were recognised as the Best Emerging Athletes of the Year, receiving ₹2.5 lakh each.

Lifetime Achievement Awards, carrying a cash prize of ₹5 lakh each, were conferred upon PT Usha, Anju Bobby George, Gurbacha Singh Randhawa, and Bahadur Singh Randhawa.

Viswanathan Anand has been conferred the Sports Journalists' Federation of India (SJFI) Gold Medal in recognition of his exceptional contribution to Indian chess and outstanding achievements in the sport.

The award was presented by former India captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth at the Madras Cricket Club (MCC) in Chennai.

Harsh Vardhan, the President of the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA), has been honoured with the Global Prestige Award at the House of Lords in UK.

The award was presented under the theme 'Visionaries of Change: Charting the Course to Viksit Bharat 2047'. It is to be noted that he was elected as the youngest President in the history of the BCA in 2025.

Jainendra K Jain, an Indian-born theoretical physicist, has been honoured with the prestigious Wolf Prize 2025 in the Physics category. He is the first Indian-born theoretical physicist to receive this honour, recognised for his 1989 discovery of composite fermions.

In the Physics category, the prize was jointly awarded to James P Eisenstein (USA), Jainendra K Jain (India/USA), and Mordehai Heiblum (Israel) for their contributions to the study of two-dimensional electron systems and composite fermions. Each category carries a diploma and a cash prize of $100,000.

Sudarsan Pattnaik, a sand artist from Puri, Odisha, has won the Russia Grand Sand Master Cup 2026 at the II International Festival of Sand Sculpture in Kaliningrad, Russia. He is the first Indian to receive this honour.

His winning entry was a 3-meter high sand sculpture depicting two contrasting faces of Earth. It is to be noted that he was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2014 for his contributions to the field of Arts.

Gautam Dey, an Indian-origin scientist affiliated with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Germany, has been awarded the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Gold Medal 2026.

He received the recognition for his research on the evolutionary origins of nuclear organization and cell division. He shares the award with Omaya Dudin from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. The awardees receive a medal and a bursary of €10,000.

The Sangeet Natak Akademi has announced the fellowships and awards for 2024 and 2025. The Akademi Fellowship (Akademi Ratna), the highest lifetime achievement honour in performing arts in India (restricted to 40 living individuals), has been conferred upon 7 eminent artists. The award carries a cash prize of ₹3 lakh, a Tamrapatra, and an Angavastram.

The Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) were conferred upon 108 artists for their work in Hindustani and Carnatic music, classical and folk dance, theatre, and puppetry. The award includes a cash prize of ₹1 lakh, a Tamrapatra, and an Angavastram.

Additionally, the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar, which honours young artists up to the age of 40, was presented to 106 recipients. Each recipient receives a cash prize of ₹25,000, a Tamrapatra, and an Angavastram.

GRASA Millets & Food Pvt Ltd, the first food-led metabolic recovery system of India, has been conferred the ‘Rashtriya Ratna Samman 2026’.

The startup was awarded under the category of “Emerging Health Tech & Nutrition Innovation Startup of the Year” for the innovative approach of the company to metabolic health, which utilizes the science of millets and fermentation.

The Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) initiative has been awarded the 2026 Food Planet Prize.

The prize, presented by the Curt Bergfors Foundation in Bastad, Sweden, is one of the world’s largest environmental awards focusing on the transformation of global food systems. The APCNF received a monetary prize of $1.5 million.

President Droupadi Murmu conferred gallantry awards during Phase-I of the Defence Investiture Ceremony 2026, held at Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi. The awards included 7 Kirti Chakras (2 posthumous), 15 Vir Chakras (3 posthumous), and 29 Shaurya Chakras (1 posthumous).

Lieutenant Shashank Tiwari and Sepoy Janjal Pravin Prabhakar were awarded the Kirti Chakra posthumously. Rifleman Sunil Kumar, Sub Inspector (GD) Mohd Imteyaj, and Constable (GD) Deepak Chingakham were posthumously awarded the Vir Chakra, while Lance Dhadr (L/DFR) Baldev Chand was awarded the Shaurya Chakra posthumously.

The Indian Haj Mission has been honoured with two ‘Labbaytum Awards’ by the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah of Saudi Arabia.

The awards were conferred in the categories of Coordination and Communication, recognising the exemplary management of Haj operations and pilgrim services during Haj 2026. It is to be noted that this is the first instance of India receiving two Labbaytum Awards in a single Haj season.

Major Abhilasha Barak, an Indian Army officer, has been conferred the 2025 UN Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award. She served as the Engagement Team Commander and Gender Focal Point within the Indian Battalion under the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

She is the third Indian peacekeeper to receive this global award, after Major Suman Gawani (2019) and Major Radhika Sen (2023). It is to be noted that She is the first woman combat helicopter pilot in the history of the Indian Army.

The National Awards for e-Governance (NAeG) 2026 recognized 17 projects across India to promote excellence in digital governance. The awards comprised 10 Gold Awards, 6 Silver Awards, and 1 Jury Award.

The Panchayat Advancement Index (PAI), managed by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, received a Gold Award under Category VII. The e-Jagriti Platform, operated by the Department of Consumer Affairs, secured a Silver Award under Category I.

Recognized projects include the ‘Agri Stack’ project by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and the ‘Mahakumbh 2025 Initiative’ by the Prayagraj Mela Authority. Additionally, the Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council (K-DISC) received recognition for its ‘Blood Bag Traceability & Citizen Interaction Portal’, a citizen-centric health technology development.

Gold Award winners receive a trophy, a citation, and a cash prize of ₹10 lakh, while Silver Award winners are awarded a trophy, a certificate, and ₹5 lakh.

Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal presented the Sagar Aankalan - Logistics Port Performance Index (LPPI) awards for the FY25. The Deendayal Port Authority (DPA) in Gujarat was recognized as the best-performing port in the ‘Handling of Container Cargo - less than 0.5 Million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs)’ category.

The Visakhapatnam Port Authority (VPA) secured the second position in the ‘Sagar Aankalan Award’ for ‘Excellence in Handling Liquid Bulk Cargo’ in the category of ports handling 5 million tonnes and above.

Valluvan, a farmer from the Pollachi district of Tamil Nadu, has been honoured as a ‘Soil Farmer Hero’ by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN.

He has received this recognition for transforming his 11-hectare landholding into a profitable enterprise. He achieved this through the implementation of multi-crop, tree-based farming techniques, generating revenue of ₹2.5 lakh to ₹3 lakh per acre.

The 79th edition of the annual Cannes International Film Festival 2026 was hosted in Cannes, France. The Palme d’Or, the highest award, was won by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu for his drama ‘Fjord’, marking his second win. The Grand Prix was awarded to Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev for his political thriller ‘Minotaur’.

The Jury Prize was conferred upon ‘The Dreamed Adventure’ by Valeska Grisebach (Germany). The Best Director award was jointly presented to Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (Spain) for ‘La Bola Negra’ and Paweł Pawlikowski (Poland) for ‘Fatherland’.

The Best Actor award was shared by Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne (Belgium) for ‘Coward’, while the Best Actress award was jointly awarded to Virginie Efira (Belgium-France) and Tao Okamoto (Japan) for ‘All Of A Sudden’.

The Best Screenplay award was presented to Emmanuel Marre (France) for ‘A Man of His Time’, and the Camera d’Or for Best First Film was awarded to ‘Ben’Imana’ by Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo (Rwanda).

Professor Manindra Agrawal, the Director of the IIT Kanpur, and Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the former Chief Scientist of the WHO, have been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS).

The Royal Society is one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific academies in the world.

Five outstanding female scientists have been honoured with the “UNESCO–L’Oréal International Awards for Women in Science 2026”, presented jointly by the UNESCO and the Fondation L’Oréal.

The laureates for 2026 include Professor Liesl Zühlke from South Africa, Professor Felice Jacka from Australia, Professor Sarah A Teichmann from the UK, Professor Raquel Chan from Argentina, and Professor Gordana Novakovic from the United States (US).

Karnataka Grameena Bank (KGB) has won the National Award from the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA). The award is given recognising its outstanding performance in subscriber enrolment under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) scheme.

Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa, has conferred the Order of Mapungubwe, the highest civilian honour of the nation, on Indian-origin professors.

Salim Abdool Karim received the award under the Gold category, while Keertan Dheda was awarded under the Silver category. The honours were given recognising their exceptional contributions to the fields of medical science, epidemiology, and health policy.