Around Town

Nihalani receives Sindhu Gaurav Puraskar

The International Sindhu Chamber of Commerce (ISCC) presented The Sindhu Gaurav award at Sayaji Hotel,Wakad,on Sunday,to film-maker Govind Nihalani for his outstanding contribution to Indian cinema. Started in 2003 by Dada J P Vaswani,ISSC is a commercial organisation that works towards bringing Sindhis from across the world together. “It’s the eighth year of the organisation and every year we confer this award to a person from the Sindhi community for his outstanding contribution towards society,” said Kishu Mansukhani,former president of the association. Lawyer Ram Jethmalani and Indu Shahani,thrice the Mayor of Mumbai,are among the earlier recipients. Nihalani spoke about what inspired him to make films cut off from commercial cinema. “Drawing my influence from the freedom struggle and leaders like Gandhi,Nehru and Bose,I tried to express concern at the direction in which our society was moving. It was not as was anticipated by them.”