GUWAHATI, Dec 24 � The famed music group of the North-east � Shillong Chamber Choir � has been honoured with the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year � Special Achievement Award for putting their homeland�s cultural and musical talent on the national map.
The grand finale of the award ceremony will be telecast on CNN-IBN at 9-30 pm on December 30, a press release stated.
The young group of singers from Shillong, dubbed as the �rock capital of India�, has been captivating the minds of music lovers with western chorals and Hindi classics. They also enthralled the Obamas during the presidential banquet held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan recently.
The award presentation ceremony last night was graced by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as chief guest besides a number of distinguished personalities.
CNN-IBN Indian of the Year Award was instituted to commemorate the achievements of doers from various walks of life whose contributions have brought pride to the nation. The award ceremony acknowledged the achievements of various personalities and felicitated them with CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2010 under the following categories � Politics: Nitish Kumar, Sports: Sushil Kumar, Business: Kumar Mangalam Birla, Entertainment: Shankar, Public Service: Ladakh Ecological Development Group and SEEDS India. The special achievements category included J Gopikrishnan, Shillong Chamber Choir and Indian Women�s relay team of Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, Ashwini Akkunji and Mandeep Kaur. The Lifetime Achievement went to MS Swaminathan.
Speaking on the occasion, Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-Chief of CNN-IBN, IBN7 & IBN-Lokmat, termed the award as CNN-IBN�s earnest effort to pay gratitude to all those exceptional individuals across different categories whose extraordinary efforts had brought pride and honour to the nation.
