Dhirubhai Ambani, Kher, Saina to be given Padma awards today

Founder of Reliance Industries late Dhirubhai Ambani, former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Jagmohan, actors Anupam Kher and Ajay Devgn and badminton star Saina Nehwal are among 56 eminent persons who will be honoured with Padma awards by the President on Monday.
Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, renowned dancer Yamini Krishnamurti, former CAG Vinod Rai, film maker Madhur Bhandarkar and celebrated chef Mohammed Imtiaz Qureshi will also receive the Padma awards at the Civil Investiture Ceremony to be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
President Pranab Mukherjee will present five Padma Vibhushan, eight Padma Bhushan and 43 Padma Shri awards at the function.
Dhirubhai Hirachand Ambani (posthumous), Avinash Kamalakar Dixit, Jagmohan, Yamini Krishnamuthi and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar would be awarded Padma Vishushan, while Padma Bhushan would be conferred on Hafeez Sorabe Contractor, Barjinder Singh Hamdard, Anupam Pushkarnath Kher, Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry, Saina Nehwal, Vinod Rai, Alla Ventaka Rama Rao and Duvvur Nageshwar Reddy.
The 43 Padma Shri awardees who will receive the honour tomorrow include Mylswamy Annadurai, Madhur R Bhandarkar, Ajay Devgn, Deepika Kumari and Mohammed Imtiaz Qureshi.
Government had announced Padma awards for 112 eminent persons on the eve of Republic Day.
The rest of the awardees, including superstar Rajinikanth, actor Priyanka Chopra and tennis star Sania Mirza, will be given the honour at a separate function to be held next month.

Hat-trick for 'The Revenant', DiCaprio best actor at Golden Globes

Period survival drama The Revenant emerged as the big winner at the 73rd Golden Globes, scoring a hat-trick by taking home trophies for best picture drama, best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio and best director.

The movie saw off competition from Carol, Mad Max: Fury Road, Room, and Spotlight.

The biggest snub of the night was to lesbian romance Carol which returned empty handed despite five nominations.

Considered to be a precursor to the Oscars, Globes win has upped DiCaprio's chances of winning his first Academy award for the true-story inspired role of frontiersman Hugh Glass in The Revenant, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

The 41-year-old actor said it was an incredible honour to win as he acknowledged fellow nominees, his director and co-star Tom Hardy.

BS annual awards, 2015: High-powered jury selects the best eight

Vivek Chaand Sehgal, then 18, started his business career as a silver merchant in the early 1970s, launched Motherson along with his mother in 1977 to manufacture power cables and then graduated to auto component manufacturing six years later. A little over two decades later (it was listed in 1993), the company's revenue has grown at a breakneck speed - from Rs 10 crore to Rs 34,600 crore in FY15. Profits have been growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 35 per cent, resulting in super shareholder returns. Motherson has 42,000 employees in India and another 30,000 in other parts of the world and manufactures spare parts used by almost all the famous cars globally.

In 2000, Siddhartha Lal was all of 26 when he took over as the chief executive officer of Royal Enfield. Four years later, as chief operating officer of Eicher Motors, Lal took a momentous decision - he decided to divest 13 of the 15 businesses that Eicher was in and decided to put all money and focus behind Royal Enfield and trucks, two businesses where he believed the group had a genuine shot at leadership. The bet has paid off big time, with Eicher becoming one of the most profitable auto makers in the world. After making Royal Enfield an iconic brand in India, Lal, now managing director & CEO, has relocated to London to make his mark globally. Eicher now has a market capitalisation of over Rs 40,000 crore.

Outstanding achievements like those of Sehgal and Lal can hardly go unnoticed when the chairman of India's largest car maker chairs a distinguished jury comprising the heads of a private equity giant, two marquee management and strategic consultancy organisations and one of India's top legal eagles to decide the winners of the Business Standard awards for corporate excellence for 2015.

While scale, sustainability and visionary leadership were some of the buzzwords that figured prominently during the two-hour-long discussions here on Monday, R C Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki and head of the jury, put things in perspective. "While an objective assessment of past performance backed by rigorous assessment of data was important, my distinguished colleagues in the jury also looked carefully at the winners' ability to deliver in future," Bhargava said.

And that was the main reason why Sehgal was unanimously chosen the CEO of the Year and Eicher Motors, headed by Lal, as the Company of the Year. Several names came up for discussions for these two coveted awards, but what tilted the scales in favour of the duo was the confidence of the jury members that their business models were sustainable.

"We looked carefully at success that can endure," said McKinsey India MD and McKinsey Inc director Noshir Kaka, a jury member, summing up the mood.

The other members of the jury were - KKR India CEO Sanjay Nayar, EY India CEO and Country Managing Partner Rajiv Memani and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas Managing Partner Cyril Shroff who said he came across some "great stories" of corporate excellence during the meeting.

The task of selecting the winners - in a year when slowdown was the main theme - was in any case a tough one, but the five-member jury managed to make it look simple by often engaging in friendly banter among themselves to lighten things up a bit. That of course didn't stop them from cranking up the strictness quotient a level higher. All of them agreed while financial ratios were important for making the first cut, equal importance had to be given to individuals who focused on innovation and built real institutions at a time when the challenges in the external environment were severe. "We chose companies that stood out at a time of economic turbulence through constant innovation to create customer delight and shareholder wealth creation," said Nayar.

The jury members had obviously gone through the 350-page information docket, containing details of the candidates shortlisted by the Business Standard Research Bureau on the basis of top line and bottom line growth and other financial criteria, including returns on net worth and capital employed.

The stage was set for the jury meeting when Bhargava began the process by asking members to shortlist two candidates from each category - each of whom were then subjected to intense scrutiny. The agenda was a formidable one: selecting the Lifetime Achievement award winner, CEO of the Year and Company of the Year, and achievers in other categories - Star Public-Sector Undertaking, Star Multinational Company and Star Small and Medium Enterprise. Two new categories were added this year in tune with the changing corporate and social landscape - Best Start-Up and Public Institution.

The dominance of automobile companies among the winners (half the eight winners were from that sector) led to a lively discussion on whether the Indian manufacturing sector is finally getting its place under the sun.