Not sure if these rules can be sacrosanct...These awards will have political pulls and pressures...I am happy with the awards given this year to spiritual Guru Sri SriRavishankar, Former CAG Vinod Rai (who exposed the Coal allocation and 2G scam) & Actor Anupam Kher who is fighting for the Kashmiri Pandits!
Not sure if these rules can be sacrosanct...These awards will have political pulls and pressures...I am happy with the awards given this year to spiritual Guru Sri SriRavishankar, Former CAG Vinod Rai (who exposed the Coal allocation and 2G scam) & Actor Anupam Kher who is fighting for the Kashmiri Pandits!
5 rules to make Padma awards less political
. Be transparent: To be fair to the Modi government it publicly invited in May last year nominations for the Padma awards, seeking 800-word citations to justify the award. But it did not bother to elaborate enough. The official Web link to the guidelines in the Ministry of External Affairs shows the document missing.
2. Categorise better: Officially, India gives Padma Awards in indentified fields such as Arts, Literature, Medicine Education, Sports, Public Affairs, Trade & Industry, Civil Service, Science & Engineering and Social Work. Can these be bettered? Is a folk musician equal to a classical singer? Is an Assamese singer less than a Hindi vocalist? Is a bureaucrat economist as good as an academician?
3. Time it well: Some awards are considered to be given too late. Princeton economist Avinash Dixit, considered as a Nobel prize candidate, has been awarded the Padma Vibhushan this year, but Vijay Kelkar, no doubt a PhD in economics, received the honour in 2011. In 2013, singer S. Janaki turned down a Padma Bhushan saying it was “too late” and southern Indian artists were not given due recognition.
4. Benchmark using outside experts: It takes experts to analyse someone being given an award within the category for which they are honoured. Sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan turned down a Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan (the latter twice). “This is an insult to me. If there is any award for sitar in India, I must get it first,” he said in 2000. The Ustad’s rivalry with Pandit Ravi Shankar is well-known, but in some cases experts would sympathise more with the one who refuses an award.
5. Do the Left-Out Test: In any category, it is always safe to ask if someone more deserving has been left out in the rush to honour someone – because the most visible need not be the most deserving. Many scientists and industrialists are particularly not flamboyant in media games. With Indian achievers spread across the planet, the test must be more rigorous.
Consider the fact that Alka Yagnik, Bollywood’s most famous female singer since Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, has received a long string of industry awards, but never a Padma honour.
Does it make sense?
http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/5-rules-to-make-padma-awards-less-political/
Not sure if these rules can be sacrosanct...These awards will have political pulls and pressures...I am happy with the awards given this year to spiritual Guru Sri SriRavishankar, Former CAG Vinod Rai (who exposed the Coal allocation and 2G scam) & Actor Anupam Kher who is fighting for the Kashmiri Pandits!
5 rules to make Padma awards less political
- Narayanan Madhavan, Hindustan Times |
- Updated: Jan 26, 2016 18:04 IST
. Be transparent: To be fair to the Modi government it publicly invited in May last year nominations for the Padma awards, seeking 800-word citations to justify the award. But it did not bother to elaborate enough. The official Web link to the guidelines in the Ministry of External Affairs shows the document missing.
2. Categorise better: Officially, India gives Padma Awards in indentified fields such as Arts, Literature, Medicine Education, Sports, Public Affairs, Trade & Industry, Civil Service, Science & Engineering and Social Work. Can these be bettered? Is a folk musician equal to a classical singer? Is an Assamese singer less than a Hindi vocalist? Is a bureaucrat economist as good as an academician?
3. Time it well: Some awards are considered to be given too late. Princeton economist Avinash Dixit, considered as a Nobel prize candidate, has been awarded the Padma Vibhushan this year, but Vijay Kelkar, no doubt a PhD in economics, received the honour in 2011. In 2013, singer S. Janaki turned down a Padma Bhushan saying it was “too late” and southern Indian artists were not given due recognition.
4. Benchmark using outside experts: It takes experts to analyse someone being given an award within the category for which they are honoured. Sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan turned down a Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan (the latter twice). “This is an insult to me. If there is any award for sitar in India, I must get it first,” he said in 2000. The Ustad’s rivalry with Pandit Ravi Shankar is well-known, but in some cases experts would sympathise more with the one who refuses an award.
5. Do the Left-Out Test: In any category, it is always safe to ask if someone more deserving has been left out in the rush to honour someone – because the most visible need not be the most deserving. Many scientists and industrialists are particularly not flamboyant in media games. With Indian achievers spread across the planet, the test must be more rigorous.
Consider the fact that Alka Yagnik, Bollywood’s most famous female singer since Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, has received a long string of industry awards, but never a Padma honour.
Does it make sense?
http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/5-rules-to-make-padma-awards-less-political/
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