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News |  29 Mar 2011 18:37 |  By PavanRChawla

AROI honours Radio's best with Lifetime Achievement Awards

* Ameen Sayani, Jasdev Singh, Khayyam and Jagjit Kaur, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Manna Dey, Rita Ganguly, Vinod Kashyap, B P Srivastava awarded

* I&B Minister Ambika Soni, Sachin Pilot, Madhur Bhandarkar, Rajeev Shukla, Shelley Chaudhary, Harkesh Gupta, Sunil Kumar Dahiya, Anurradha Prasad give away  awards

NEW DELHI: The Radio Awards 2011, from the Association of Radio Operators for India (AROI) honoured eight illustrious achievers with Lifetime Achievement Awards at a glittering ceremony at the exquisite Kingdom of Dreams in Gurgaon on Monday evening. Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Ambika Soni, along with Minister of State Sachin Pilot, along with other dignitaries, presented the awards to Radio Legend Ameen Sayani, Santoor Maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, illustrious playback singer Manna Dey, the golden voiced cricket and hockey commentator Jasdev Singh, popular music composer duo Khayyam Sahab and Smt Jagjit Kaur, popular Radio News Reader Vinod Kashyap, and technical expert B P Srivastava.

I&B Minister Ambika Soni, accompanied by Anurradha Prasad, presented the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Music Composer category to  renowned composer Padma Bhushan Khayyam Sahab -- who has also won a Sangeet Natak Akademi award along with three Filmfare Awards – and his wife, the celebrated playback and AIR singer, Jagjit Kaur. Accepting the award, she took the opportunity to thank AIR. I started singing on AIR Lahore just six months before the Partition,... she told the audience. Then on AIR Jalandhar, then AIR Delhi, and finally on AIR Mumbai. I am truly grateful to AIR for giving us so much support and so much learning....

The Lifetime Achievement Award in the Radio Legend category went to the one and only Ameen Sayani, who has had a cult following across 68 years of his golden-voiced association with Radio, which began when he was seven in 1939. Film Director Madhur Bhandarkar, a huge fan of Ameen Sahab, presented the award to the legend, who received the loudest applause.

Sachin Pilot presented the Lifetime Achievement Award for the category of Sports Commentator to the ever popular and much loved Hindi commentator, Padma Shree and Padma Bhushan Jasdev Singh, who has given sports commentary for 9 Olympics, 8 Hockey World Cups and 6 Asian Games, and has been providing live commentary for Independence Day- and Republic Day parades in New Delhi since 1963.

Singh reminisced about how, while listening to the live commentary of Mahatma Gandhi's funeral procession by the great Melville DMello, the young Jasdev was so moved that, in spite of not knowing how to read, write, or even speak Hindi, he had vowed to his mother, in chaste Punjabi, that he would be a Hindi commentator on AIR! He subsequently joined AIR Jaipur in 1955, and was awarded the Padma Shri in 1985 and the Padma Bhushan in 2004  The ever humble Singh received huge applause when he recited an Urdu couplet:  Jis Din Se Chala Hoon, Manzil Pe Nazar Hai / Meel Ka Patthar Kabhi Dekha Nahin. (From the very beginning, I have focused on my destination / Never bothering about the milestones)

The Lifetime Achievement Award for Playback Singing was awarded to renowned singer Manna Dey. The award was collected by his friend and live-shows compere K C Khurana, also a gifted poet, who broke into spontaneous verse. The award was presented by Harkesh Gupta,   Chairman & MD – BECIL.

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan won the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Classical Music category. Radio legend Ameen Sayani accepted the award on his behalf from Anurradha Prasad. Ameen Sahab said, He (Amjad Ali Khan sahab) is a great lad, and he plays the sarod beautifully. I will be very happy to hand over this award to him....

In the category of Radio News Reader, the Lifetime Achievement Award went to renowned AIR Hindi newsreader, Mrs Vinod Kashyap. Radio Mirchi ED and CEO Prashant Panday accepted the award from AROI President Anurradha Prasad on her behalf.

The Lifetime Achievement Award for the Radio Voice category went to Padma Shri Prof. Rita Ganguly, the renowned singer, dancer and Radio presenter, who received it from MP Rajeev Shukla. She had the house enraptured with a brief impromptu ghazal.

Shelly Chaudhary, MD of Unisys Infosolutions and Sunil  Dahiya, MD – Vighneshwara Group gave away the Lifetime Achievement Award for the Radio Technical category to B P Srivastava, renowned in the technical circles for having led the formulation of the FM policy of AIR in the 80s, and also planning for 100 FM transmitters across the country. He was decorated with the Akashvani Award for that pioneering feat, and subsequently played a vital role in unfolding of private FM broadcasting in the country by contributing his mite in conceptual planning and preparation of framework of the schemes and then in system design and frequency planning under Phase I, Phase II and Phase III schemes.

The Radio Awards 2011 were followed by two music launches.

Radio Congress 2011 Summit and Awards Sponsor Unisys launched the music of West Is West, scored by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Pakistani Sufi Artist Shaheen Manzoor,  and Bhindi Bazar, starring  Om Puri,  Ila Arun and others. The launch of Bhindi Bazar's music featured a dance performance by Caterina Lopez. This was followed by a performance from the extravaganza Zangoora which is a regular at the sprawling Kingdom of Dreams in Gurgaon, which was the venue of the AROI Congress, put together flawlessly by AROI Secretary General Uday Chawla and his team.

The Radio Awards 2011, music launches and dance performances  rounded up an eventful second annual Radio Congress (2011) of the AROI, which featured several industry luminaries and Radio heads in panel discussions and individual presentations to share their views with their fellow professionals.

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