NEW DELHI: The third edition of CNN-IBN Indian of the Year award held in the capital witnessed G Madhavan Nair and team Chandrayaan being declared as the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2008.

G Madhavan Nair and Team Chandrayaan also bagged the award in the category of Public service sector.

Says Network 18 managing director Raghav Bahl, " The year 2008 was an extraordinary year in terms of global economic crisis. The year taught everybody from politicians to policy makers to businessmen lessons on how to manage crisis. For businessmen 2008 was a year to stop running on bloated balance sheets and begin fresh management of accounts while for policy makers it was time to check the policies again in order to save the Indian economy from further effects of economic crisis as the time when the crisis had begun the country was relatively safe as compared to other economies."

Meanwhile veteran Hindi cinema actor Dilip Kumar was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement award and New Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit was conferred with Special Achievement award.

Assistant sub inspector late Tukaram Omble and the Mumbai Police who fought bravely at the time terror attack on 26 November, 2008 were bestowed with the award of Extraordinary Service to the Nation.

"CNN-IBN Indian of the Year award recognises the outstanding contributions of Indians in various categories. This initiative is an attempt to recognise the contribution of individuals who stood first amongst equals," adds IBN18 Network editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai.

Earlier on 30 January, CNN-IBN had announced the category-wise winners which included Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar in Politics, while Olympic Gold medalist-Abhinav Bindra was declared the winner in Sports category. The category of Business saw HDFC Bank MD Aditya Puri as the winner and Aamir Khan was announced as the winner in the Entertainment sector.

Finally, the Global Indian award went to AR Rahman.

The winners were chosen through a four-tier election process, where the IBN 18 editorial board drew the list of nominees; followed by voting of the electoral college and the citizens of India and the jury having ratified it. The process was audited by Ernst & Young.