Manthan Awards announced in 14 categories

The Manthan-AIF Awards 2006, a first of its kind initiative in India to honour and recognise best practices in e-content and creativity, recently felicitated the winners in its various categories.

The event, held on August 5, 2006, in Delhi, concluded with 14 categories of awards. Some of the popular categories where awards were given included e-learning, localisation, culture, news, environment, youth and others. The event was organised by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in association with the America India Foundation.

Osama Manzar, founder, DEF, and jury member of the Manthan-AIF Awards, says, “There has been a lot of hype around technology, especially at the grass-root level. There is no information or assessment as to whether information does make an impact and the benefit trickles down to the grass-root level. This was the basic idea behind starting the Manthan Awards in 2004.”

In 2005, there were eight categories and Manthan received close to 100 nominations. This year, the 14 categories saw 32 winners, five special mentions and four appreciations for community radio initiatives.

The Manthan Awards has the support of various organisations in India – ITVidya.com, Inomy, ICONGO, the confederation of NGOs in India, and IRAM among them. ICONGO, the knowledge partner, has supported the initiative and attempted to broaden the scope of the awards. It has been successful in getting television rights for the 2007 Awards.

Bhojpuria.com from Jharkhand in the culture category, mouthshut.com and shunya.in from the youth category, and Walt Disney in the entertainment category were among those who bagged awards.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!