Writers given a miss at the Padma awards this year

Not many big ticket writers were visible in the government's Padma awardees list this year. A reflection of the low esteem it has for what writers and literature can do for shining India perhaps. Most of them were educationists, and given the state Indian education is in, it is no wonder that the average Indian has such little respect for the awards. On theother hand, literature, which is at least holding up a mirror, and instilling some values, gets overlooked badly.

Fareed Zakaria is the only prominent name, and he was awarded in the journalism category!

The following is the list of those awarded in the Literature and Education section this year:

Padma Bhushan
Fareed Zakaria (Journalism)
Anil Bordia
Prof. Bipan Chandra
G.P. Chopra
Prof. Mohammad Amin
Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri
Prof. Tan Chung


Padma Shri
Arun Sarma - Assamese playwright and dramatist
Prof. Arvind Kumar
Bertha Gyndykes Dkhar
Prof. Govind Chandra Pande
Prof. Hamidi Kashmiri 
Prof. (Dr.) Hermann Kulke
Janaki Ballav Shastri 
Dr. Jitendra Udhampuri
Dr. Lal Bahadur Singh Chauhan
Lalzuia Colney
Maria Aurora Couto 
Dr. (Smt.) Rajalakshmi Parthasarathy alias Y.G. Parthasarathy
Prof. Ramaranjan Mukherji
Dr. Ranganathan Parthasarathy
Fr. Romuald D’Souza 
Prof. Sadiq-Ur-Rahman Kidwai
Sheldon Pollock
Dr. Surendra Dubey

Fareed Zakaria is India Abroad Person of the Year

Journalist and author Fareed Zakaria has been named the India Abroad Person of the Year for 2008.

Zakaria last year became the first Indian American to host his own show on a major network, when CNN launched the hour-long Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday prime time.