2 National film awards till March, sai to head jury

Indian film fraternity will be busy receiving awards from the Information and Broadcasting ministry till end of March 2010.

Updated on: Aug 6, 2009, 01:46:14 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Indian film fraternity will be busy receiving awards from the Information and Broadcasting ministry till end of March 2010.

In between the two national film awards — for 2007 and 2008 — to be awarded in October and March respectively, the actors will also be receiving awards at Indian Panorama at India International Film Festival in Goa in November this year.

“We have decided to end the backlog of national film awards by end of March next year,” said S.M. Khan, director,
Directorate of Films, the ministry’s unit responsible for giving awards.

No film award ceremony was held in 2007 because filmmaker Anand Patwardhan had challenged the process for selection of documentaries for the awards in Bombay High Court. It resulted in film award running a year behind schedule.

The I&B ministry is expected to announce the process for national film awards 2007 this week. Over 100 feature films and 50 documentaries are expected to competing for the national awards.

A ministry official, not willing to be quoted, said noted film director Sai Paranjpai was expected to head the feature film jury, which would consist of about 15 members.

Paranjpai is known for movies like Chashme Baddoor.

For the non-feature category, Kolkata’s Ashok Vishwanathan is expected to head the jury. Delhi-based Namita Gokhale is expected to head the jury on best writings on films.

The feature film jury will start the process of screening over 100 films at Siri Fort Auditorium from August 17. The non-feature film jury will start watching documentaries from August 27.

“By first week of September the juries are expected to submit the list of national awards to the I&B minister,” said a senior official.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.