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"Glitter, glam and a lot of substance!"

Times Group MD Vineet Jain among others honoured at Rajiv Gandhi Awards '09

Whoever said politicians are a grim and serious lot! Well, they can have a great sense of humour, too, and enjoy themselves to the hilt. This was more than evident at the 12th Rajiv Gandhi Awards 09 held at NCPA on Wednesday. At this star-studded ceremony ? which saw a good presence of Bollywood as well ?12 eminent personalities from diverse fields including education, sports, industry, journalism, entertainment, the social field among others, were honoured.
Vineet Jain, MD of The Times Group, was conferred the award for Excellence in Industry. The other awardees included Sam Pitroda (Global Indian), Olympic gold shooter Abhinav Bindra (Sports), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair (Super Achiever), Rajashree Birla (Social Field), Pune University Vice-Chancellor Dr Narendra Jadhav (Education), Rohit Kochhar (Young Entrepreneur), Ramesh Chandra Agarwal, Chairman of Dainik Bhaskar (Journalism), Everest conqueror Krushnaa Patil (Young Achiever) and telly wonder Avika Gor (Child Prodigy).
"We choose people from diverse fields and the one thing common between all the winners is that they are a source of inspiration for others to excel," said Maharashtra MLC and Mumbai Congress Vice-President Charan Singh Sapra, convener of the awards. The theme this year was 'Celebrating Modern India'.
"It is a great honour to receive this award and I accept it on behalf of the 11,000 employees of The Times Group family," said a dapper Vineet Jain, who was presented the award by Union Minister for Food Processing Subodhkant Sahay and Sapra himself. "Rajiv Gandhi will always be remembered as a great icon who focussed on youth and technology. He believed in our cause and supported a free press. I dedicate this award to my brother Samir Jain, Vice-Chairman of The Times Group, for his vision for the media
industry," Mr Jain further said. With The Times Group already being present across all mediums be it print, television, internet, radio, what next, asked anchors Shreyas Talpade and Mahima Chowdhary? To which Mr Jain replied, "It's got to be the mobile phone. A time will soon come when people will depend on their cell phones for newspaper reading, television, radio etc." Priyanka Chopra's and Hrithik Roshan's high-octane performances were the high-point of the afternoon. Esha Deol, telly star Hussain Kuwajerwala and music director duo Vishal-Shekhar too enthralled the audience with their acts. The gorgeous Katrina Kaif attracted a huge round of applause as she danced to Teri Ore sung by Shreyas. Funnyman Raju Srivastava's gags had everyone in splits. He didn't spare the netas in the auditorium, who were very sporting. Present were Vilasrao Deshmukh, Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sanjay Nirupam, Eknath Gaikwad, Milind Deora and Mohammed Azharuddin among others. For little Avika, this was a dream come true and she did make it a point to thank everyone possible from her parents to her TV serial producers. Shahid, who did a quick Kaminey jig for the audience, said, "I grew up watching Rajiv Gandhi and I too want to do something for the country." The recipients, along with a trophy, were presented a copy of the book Rajiv's World by Sonia Gandhi.