Indian Literary Excellence took center stage at the ‘VODAFONE CROSSWORD BOOK AWARDS 2007’ as the best writers and their books were honoured at Nehru Auditorium on Thursday, July 3rd 2008. This year the awards went to ‘A Girl and a River’ by Usha K. R. for the English Fiction category, ‘The Last Mughal’ by William Dalrymple for English Non-Fiction and ‘Chowringhee’ by Sankar (translator Arunava Sinha ) & ‘Govardhan's Travels’ by author Anand C P Sachidanandan (translatorGita Krishnankutty ) jointly for Indian Language Fiction Translation.

Amitav Ghosh, (Book award winner in the English Fiction category in 2004 for his book The Hungry Tide) who was the chief guest for the evening felicitated the winners.

‘The Vodafone Crossword Popular Book Award’ which was introduced in 2006 , was won by Namita Devidayal for her book ‘The Music Room’. The Award is a unique initiative by Crossword and Vodafone and offers readers the opportunity to vote for their favourite book.

A packed audience that included distinguished writers, publishers, critics and book-lovers enjoyed the much-awaited event that is poised to become the biggest celebration of Indian literature. Noted theater personality and actor Tom Alter was the host for the evening. At the awards, the audience was treated to an eloquent rendition by renowned classical singer Shubha Mudgal and was interspersed by dramatisations from the winning books by noted theatre personalities

The winners for the Vodafone Crossword Book Awards 2007 were decided by a respected panel of judges comprising well-known academics, critics and writers in each category. Ms. Manjula Padmabhan , Mr. Kai Friese & Mr. Mukul Kesavan served as judges in the English Fiction Category, Ms. Anita Roy, Mr. Mukund Padmanabhan & Mr. Harsh Sethi for the English Non-Fiction category and Mr. Dilip Kumar, Ms. Urvashi Butulia & Mr. Paul Zacharia for the Indian Language Fiction Translation category.

This year, the Award has generated a great response from the Indian publishers and 186 valid entries were received for the 3 categories. The selection process took several months of reading, deliberation and discussion before the three panels made their selections.

Mr. C.B Navalkar – CEO Crossword Bookstores stated: “The Vodafone Crossword Book Awards 2007 is the culmination of an intense process of reading, reviewing and assessing the literary merits of the best of Indian writing and Indian writers. Now in its 8th year, the awards have consistently evoked an enthusiastic response from the literary community and consumers alike. We are also delighted to have Vodafone join hands with us again to present the awards”

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About Crossword:

Crossword is India’s leading bookstore chain, which has pioneered the lifestyle bookstore concept in India. Its innovative approach to book retailing and its achievements have received wide acclaim in India and has won the ‘Reid & Taylor Award for Best Retailer of the year – Leisure & Specialty’ at the India Retail Summit 2005 'Images Retailer of the Year award for the books, music and gifts category for 2005'. Businessworld rated Crossword as the '6th Most Respected Retailer in the country' for the year 2006; the only bookstore to feature in the top ten. Launched in 1992, Crossword currently has 47 stores across 13 cities in the country in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Jaipur, New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Vadodara & Vishakhpatnam. Crossword Bookstores Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary Company of Shopper’s Stop Ltd – India’s leading department store chain. The Holding Company inter-alia also acts as a Master Franchisee of the Company.

About Vodafone:

Vodafone Essar in India is a subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc and commenced operations in 1994 when its predecessor Hutchison Telecom acquired the cellular licence for Mumbai. Vodafone Essar now has operations in 16 circles covering 86% of India’s mobile customer base, with over 44.12 million customers*.

Over the years, Vodafone Essar, under the Hutch brand, has been named the ‘Most Respected Telecom Company’, the ‘Best Mobile Service in the country’ and the ‘Most Creative and Most Effective Advertiser of the Year’.

Vodafone is the world’s leading international mobile communications company. It now has operations in 25 countries across 5 continents and 40 partner networks with over 252 million customers worldwide. Vodafone has partnered with the Essar Group as its principal joint venture partner for the Indian market.

The Essar Group is a diversified business corporation with interests spanning the manufacturing and service sectors like Steel, Energy, Power, Communications, Shipping & Logistics and Construction. The Group has an asset base of over Rs.400 billion (US$ 10 billion) and employs over 20,000 people.
*Figures from Cellular Operators Association of India, March 31, 2008