Current Affairs - Awards and Honours

Sunil Amrith, an Indian-origin historian and Yale University professor, won the 2025 British Academy Book Prize for his book The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years. The £25,000 prize honours outstanding non-fiction that deepens public understanding of global issues through scholarly research. Amrith’s work traces five centuries of human-environment interaction, exploring how empire, capitalism, and industrialization have shaped ecological change worldwide. His recognition underscores the growing importance of environmental history and highlights the contributions of Indian-origin scholars to global academic discourse. The British Academy praised his book for reframing history through an ecological lens.

Justice Prathiba M. Singh of the Delhi High Court has been appointed as the Chair of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Advisory Board of Judges for 2025–2027. She is the first Indian and the first Asian to hold this prestigious position, marking a significant milestone in global intellectual property law. As Chair, she will guide WIPO in aligning its policies with judicial standards worldwide. Her appointment highlights India’s growing leadership in IP law and offers strategic judicial perspectives on innovation, digital governance, and economic development.

Karthik Narain, a seasoned technology executive and former CTO of Accenture, has been appointed as the Chief Product and Business Officer at Google Cloud. In this role, he will oversee product and engineering teams across cloud, AI, developer tools, and Applied AI, while also leading the go-to-market strategy and collaborating with the public sector division. Narain’s appointment strengthens Google Cloud’s leadership team amid intense competition with AWS and Microsoft Azure. With over 25 years of experience in enterprise systems, AI, and cloud innovation, he is expected to accelerate Google Cloud’s global growth and drive AI-driven digital transformation for enterprise customers.

Masaki Kashiwara, a renowned Japanese mathematician, received the Abel Prize in 2025 for his pioneering work in algebraic analysis and representation theory. He is celebrated for developing the theory of D-modules, which provides an algebraic framework to study systems of linear partial differential equations (PDEs). The Abel Prize, often regarded as the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize, honours outstanding contributions that have profoundly influenced mathematical research. Kashiwara’s work has had a lasting impact on both pure mathematics and its applications, establishing him as a leading figure in modern mathematical theory.

Tarun Garg has been appointed as the first Indian MD & CEO of Hyundai Motor India Limited, effective January 1, 2026. With over 30 years of experience in the automobile industry, Garg previously held leadership roles at Maruti Suzuki and joined Hyundai in 2019 as Director of Sales, Marketing, and Service. Promoted to COO in 2023, he led record-breaking sales and strategic operations. His appointment marks a historic shift from Korean to Indian leadership, emphasizing local talent empowerment and signaling Hyundai’s commitment to India as a critical growth market while maintaining continuity in global strategic vision.