14 May 2015 Current Affairs
President Pranab Mukherjee Presents Presidential Awards For Classical Tamil
President Pranab Mukherjee on 14 May presented the Presidential Awards for Classical Tamil for 2011-12 and 2012-13. The Tolkappiyar award for 2011-12 was given to Tamil Litterateur S V Shanmugam while for 2012-13 was given to R Krishnamurthi. The Kural Pritam award for the 2011-12 was given to Eva Maria Wilden. K Iyyappan, E Ezhilvasanthan and K Jwahar were conferred with young scholar awards for the year 2011-12 while for 2012-13, the award was presented to A Sathish, R Venkatesan, B Jaiganesh, M R Evaki and U Alibava. The ‘Presidential Awards for Classical Tamil’ were instituted to give recognition and honour to distinguished scholars, who have made outstanding contribution to classical Tamil language and literature.
Tejaswini Won Gold at Under-15 World School Chess Championships
Tejaswini Sagar from India won her maiden world title bagging the gold in the under-15 category of World School Chess Championship that concluded on 14 May at Pattaya, Thailand . She defeated Kavinya Miyuni Rajapaksa of Sri Lank to win gold medal. Irina Barbayeva of Russia won the silver medal in this category. While, top seed Nur Abidah Shanti of Indonesia won the bronze medal.Apart from Tejaswini, Anand Nadar bagged the silver medal in under-15 open category while Saloni Sapole also won the silver in under-17 girls’ section for India in this World School Chess Championship.
Harbhajan Kaur Dheer Becomes First Asian Elected Mayor In UK
Harbhajan Kaur Dheer, an Indian-origin councillor, became the first Asian woman to be elected as mayor in United Kingdom. She was elected as mayor of Ealing Council in London by succeeding councilor Tej Ram Bagha. Harbhajan Kaur Dheer was born in Punjab in 1953 and has moved to Britain in 1975. She had obtained a degree from Social Sciences at Kingston University in 1995.
Karan Menon Won National Geographic Bee Championship
Karan Menon, a 14-year-old Indian-American student, has won the prestigious National Geographic Bee competition in the US, in which the top three positions were bagged by Indian-origin contestants. Menon, an eighth grader from New Jersey, competed against 10 finalists from across the US to win the 2015 National Geographic Bee championship held at National Geographic headquarters in Washington. Of the 10 finalists, seven were of Indian-origin. In addition to winning the title of National Geographic Bee champion, Menon received a $85,000 college scholarship, lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society and an expedition for two to the Galapagos Islands aboard the Lindblad ship National Geographic Endeavour.