Dada Saheb Phalke award for Benegal

The pioneer of parallel cinema in India, Shyam Benegal, has been awarded the highest film honour of the country, , reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Aug 9, 2007, 06:03:38 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The pioneer of parallel cinema in India, Shyam Benegal, has been awarded the highest film honour of the country, the Dada Saheb Phalke award for lifetime achievement in cinema.

Benegal, who brought alive Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India to the masses on television, is the 37th recipient of the award. It was first given to Devika Rani in 1969. President Pratibha Patil will confer the prestigious prize, which carries Rs 2 lakh in cash, a golden lotus and a shawl, to Benegal later this year.

The Rajya Sabha member has already received the Padma Shri in 1976 and the Padma Bhushan in 1991. Benegal had to wait for almost a year for the award. He said it was unfortunate that the award was mired in controversy and a jury member moved court against the jury decision. “Majority wisdom should have prevailed and such a controversy should not have arisen,” he said.

But the award will not mean end of meaningful cinema from him, Benegal has promised. “Mostly this award is given to people at the fag end of their career. For me, the award will be an encouragement to come out with better cinema,” he promised.

Benegal, however, was not surprised with the award as he said he knew his name was being considered. A government statement said Benegal is considered a leading filmmaker with his first feature film Ankur breaking new grounds in cinematic trends of 1970s.

The core subjects of his films have been varied but mainly centred around contemporary Indian experience. Some of his well-known films are The Making of the Mahatma, Zubeida, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Mandi, Kalyug, Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda, Manthan and Nishant.

Apart from fictional films, he made many documentaries on subjects ranging from anthropology and problems of industrialisation, the statement said. His television work consists of many popular series based on international best stories and short stories written by Indian writers.

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

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