The India Abroad Publisher's Special Award for Excellence - Jhumpa Lahiri

Newsweek International Editor and television personality Fareed Zakaria, author of the best-selling The Post-American World, and host of CNNs Fareed Zakaria GPS, was chosen India Abroad Person of the Year 2008 at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York on March 20. Acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair, winner of the India Abroad Person of the Year Award 2007, presented Dr Zakaria with his award at a star-studded ceremony. The annual awards gala has become a marquee event on the Indian-American community calendar, and the quality of previous winners has made it a cachet even for those Indian Americans who have widespread mainstream acceptance. Past winners include Iowa legislator Swati Dandekar in 2002; co-founder, Indicorps, Sonal Shah in 2003; Mohini Bhardwaj, captain of the silver medal-winning American gymnastic team at the Sydney Olympics in 2004; then US Congressman Bobby Jindal in 2005; Pepsico Chairperson Indra Nooyi in 2006 and Nair in 2007. India Abroad is the oldest and most widely circulated weekly newspaper serving the Indian-American community, published out of New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Toronto. It is owned by Rediff.com Opening honors went to a trio of prodigiously talented children: Sameer Mishra, winner of the national Scripps National Spelling Bee; Akshay Rajagopal, who won the equally prestigious National Geography Bee; and Shivani Sud, who won the national Intel Science Talent Search contest. This year, India Abroad instituted a new award: The Face of the Future Award. On debut, it was won by Manjul Bhargava, the mathematical genius who solved a problem that had baffled the best minds for 200 years, and who became at age 28, one of the youngest full professors ever at Princeton University. The 2008 US presidential election cycle saw an unprecedented level of community involvement; it also witnessed a generational shift in leadership with the younger members of the community coming into the limelight. In recognition of this, the India Abroad Gopal Raju Award for Community Service, named after the newspapers late founder, was shared by seven young Indian-American leaders at the forefront of this change: Preeta Bansal, General Counsel in the Office of Management and Budget at the Obama White House; Nick Rathod, Director of the Office of Inter-Governmental Affairs in the Obama administration; co-founders of South Asians for Obama Hrishi Karthikeyan and Dave Kumar; founder of the Indian National Leadership Initiative Varun Nikore; Communications Director for the Campaign for Americas Future Toby Choudhuri; and newly appointed chair of the Indian American Republican Council Dino Teppara. To honour a legendary career that has spanned five decades, and to mark the career of a man who, single-handedly, has planted Indias flag at the pinnacle of Western classical music, India Abroad presented this years Award for Lifetime Achievement to ace conductor Zubin Mehta. On hand to honour Mehta with the Award wer