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| The
Zee Astitva Awards 2006 |
MUMBAI: Zee Telefilms Ltd and the Archana Trust
Suburban hosted the Zee Astitva Awards on 5 August 2006 to
honour the achievements of women in diverse fields. Specific
to our country, where every girl has to struggle to make her
mark, here are some inspirational stories that truly deserve
to be honoured.
The show was kicked off with the lighting of
the inaugural lamp by Zee Telefilms Ltd chairman Subhash Chandra
Goel and chairperson Archana Suburban Trust Rajashree Birla
along with other trustees.
The Chief Guest for the evening was (politician) Praful Patel
setting the mood for the evening saying, “In an era where
women’s achievements have equalled or surpassed that of
men, it is truly a remarkable moment in our country that women
are being able to overcome that hurdle. It is time for us to
work together collectively for the betterment of our country.”
In an award show where the ladies ruled, performances included
three of Zee’s Lil Champs, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’s Twinkle
and Sanchali, the Kasam Se sisters, Koena Mitra and Rimi Sen.
There was also a special performance by lyricist, instrumentalist
and ‘wonder tabla girl’ Tina Sugandh, but before
the night was over the sizzling Bipasha Basu got the crowd
grooving to her latest item number “Beedi” from
Omkara.
Awards were given out to women achievers in categories including
social sciences, business, science and technology, health
care, music fine arts, dance, sports and theatre among others.
The hosts for the evening were Roshini Chopra and Ram Kapoor.
However, chief guest Delhi chief minister Sheila Dixit was
not present.
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| Chess
grandmaster Koneru Humpi accepts her award |
Each awardee has performed exemplary work in their respective
fields, some of which goes unnoticed and therefore, the awards
provided a platform to not only reward these courageous souls
but also to inspire others. Starting the show, Nita Ambani
presented the award for classical dance to Vyjayanthi Kashi
while the awards for contemporary dance went to Tilottamma
Koshy, who could not be present. In recognition of her contribution
to drama, Veenapani Chawla was honoured in the area of theatre,
while Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia stepped on to stage to
give away to the award to Arpana Kaur for fine arts.
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| Pandit
Shiv Kumar Sharma presents Shubha Mudghal with her award
for music |
This
was followed by awards given to Mini Menon for constructive
journalism, Hasina Khan for social services, Dr Shobha R. Arole
for healthcare, Dr Amrita Patel for business, Dr Firuza Parikh
for science and technology. The authors award was given to Sivashankari
and for sports, to chess champ Koneru Humpi. Of course in the
music category, Shubha Mudghal was delighted on receiving the
award from Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma.
Dr Vishakha Desai and Zerbanoo Gifford were honoured with
the International Women of the Year award. The Lifetime Achievement
awards were presented by Karisma Kapoor and Kumar Mangalam
Birla to Mahasweta Devi, Ela Ramesh Bhatt and Dhondutai Kulkarni.
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| All
the awardees stand tall |
In addition, the Stellar Achievement Award was presented
to three awardees, while awards for Outstanding Contribution
to television, fashion and cinema were given to veteran TV
actor Nina Gupta, model Dipika Padukone and Bollywood star
Aishwarya Rai respectively. Aishwarya however was not present
to receive it due to her father’s illness.
The jury for the Awards included Rajashree Birla, Nita Ambani,
Chanda Kochhar, Shreyashi Goenka, Sangita Jindal, Satya Saran,
Anaya Goenka and Pheroza Godrej.
Besides representatives from Zee, like Zee CEO Pradeep Guha,
Zee executive VP network sales Joy Chakraborthy and the Kasam
Se and Sath Phere cast members, also present were FCB Ulka’s
Parameswaran, Anil Kapoor and Kishan Premnarayan.
The Zee Astitva Awards will be telecast on 19 August.
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