Indian Nobel Prize Winners:
Rabindra Nath Tagore (1861-1941):
Author and educator, he founded the Shanti Niketan (1901) which later became the Vishwabharati University. Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 for his work Gitanjali. He was the first Asian recipient of the honour. His important works include Sonar Tari, Chaitali, Kalpana, Chitrangada and Sadhana. He composed the National Anthems of India and Bangladesh.
C. V. Raman (1888-1970) :
Physicist Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930 for his study on the scattering of light, popularly known as The Raman Effect, the theory that describes the change in frequency of light while passing through a transparent medium. He founded the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1958 and conferred with the Bharat Ratna in 1954.
Hargobind Khorana (1922-2011):
An American citizen of Indian origin, Dr. Hargobind Khorana was born in Raipur (Punjab), now in Pakistan. He took his Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Liverpool and in 1960 joined the University of Wisconsin. Khorana was awarded the Nobel for Medicine in 1968 for the interpretation of genetic code and its function in protein synthesis. The co-winners of award along with Khurana were Robert W.Holley and W.Marshall Nirenberg.
Mother Teresa (1910-1997):
The ‘Angel of Mercy’, Mother Teresa was born to Albanian parents in Skopliji, Yugoslavia and baptized Agnes Gonxa Bojaxhin. She came to India when she was 18 and soon founded the ‘Missionaries of Charity’ which was approved by the Vatican in 1950. She was given Indian citizenship in 1948. She was awarded Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979.
Subramanium Chandrashekhar (1910-1995):
An American citizen of Indian origin, Dr. S. Chandrashekhar was born in Lahore, Pakistan and educated at the Presidency, Madras. He was the nephew of Sir C.V Raman. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1983 for his theoretical studies of the physical process of importance to the structure and evolution of stars (The ‘Chandrashekhar Limit’).
Amartya Sen (b.1933):
The Lamont Professor of Philosophy and Economics at Harvard University, and a member of the World Bank Advisory Board, Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998. The Kerala University on May 18, 2000 decided to honor Nobel laureate Amartya Sen with an honorary doctorate in literature.
Ramon Magsaysay Award Winners:
The Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award instituted in April 1957 in memory of former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay as an example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society.
The awards were given in six categories, five of which were discontinued in 2009: Government Service (1958–2008), Public Service (1958–2008), Community Leadership (1958–2008), Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts (1958–2008), Peace and International Understanding (1958–2008), Emergent Leadership (2001– ) and Uncategorized (2009 onwards).
Indian Winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award:
Government Service: Kiran Bedi (1994), T.N.Seshan (1996), James Michael Lyngdoh (2003),
Public Service: Jayaprakash Narayan (1965), M.S. Subbulakshmi (1974), Manibhai Desai (1982), Lakshmi Chand Jain (1989), Banoo Jehangir Coyaji (1993), V. Shanta (2005)
Community Leadership: Acharya Vinoba Bhave (1958), Verghese Kurien (1963), Dara Nusserwanji Khurody (1963), Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel (1963), Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (1966), M.S. Swaminathan (1971), Ela Bhatt (1977), Mabelle Arole & Rajanikant Arole (1979), Pramod Karan Sethi (1981), Chandi Prasad Bhatt (1982), Pandurang Shastri Athavale (1996), Aruna Roy (2000), Rajendra Singh (2001), Shantha Sinha (2003), Prakash Amte & Mandakini Amte (2008) and Bezwada Wilson (2016)
Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts: Amitabha Chowdhury (1961), Satyajit Ray (1967), Sombhu Mitra (1976), Gour Kishore Ghosh (1981), Arun Shourie (1982), R. K. Laxman (1984), K. V. Subbanna (1991), Ravi Shankar (1992), Mahasweta Devi (1997), Palagummi Sainath (2007) and Ravish Kumar (2019).
Peace and International Understanding: Mother Teresa (1962), Jockin Arputham (2000), Laxminarayan Ramdas (2004),
Uncategorized: Deep Joshi (2009), Harish Hande (2011), Kulandei Francis (2011), Anshu Gupta and Sanjiv Chaturvedi (2015), Sonam Wangchuk (2018), Bharat Vatwani (2018)
Other Magsaysay Awards include: Sandeep Pandey (2002), Arvind Kejriwal (2006), Neelima Mishra (2011) and Thodur Madabusi Krishna (2016).
There are only five Indians who have won the prestigious Oscars awards – Bhanu Athaiya (Best Costume Design – Gandhi, 1983); Satyajit Ray (Honorary Award, 1992); Gulzar (Best Original Song – Slumdog Millionaire, 2008); A.R. Rahman (Best Original Score / Best Original Song – Slumdog Millionaire, 2008) and Resul Pookutty (Best Sound Mixing – Slumdog Millionaire, 2008).
Aga Khan Award:
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture is given every three years to projects that set new standards of excellence in architecture, planning practices, historic preservation and landscape architecture. Through its efforts, the Award seeks to identify and encourage building concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of societies across the world, in which Muslims have a significant presence. The carries a prize money of $70,000.
Among the Indian projects the Slum Networking of Indore City bagged the coveted award in 1998 under the 1996-1998 Cycle. The 47-year-old Ahmedabad-based architect, Himanshu Parikh was the architect of the Indore project. Slum Networking is a community driven approach which sees slums not as resource draining liabilities, but as opportunities of sustainable change for the city as a whole.
Four other Indian projects had earlier won the coveted award as under:
(i) Mughal Sheraton Hotel, Agra (Hotels & Communal Facilities) – 1978-1980
(ii) Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad (Higher Education Facilities) – 1990-1992 Cycle
(iii) Aranya Community Housing, Indore (Housing Complexes) 1993-1995 Cycle
(iii) Lepers Hospital in Lasur (Hospitals & Health Facilities) 1996-1998 Cycle
(iv) Vidhan Bhavan, Bhopal (Official Administration Facilities) 1996-1998 Cycle