'3 Idiots' triumphs at first edition of GIMA awards

Mumbai, Nov 11 (IANS) Aamir Khan starrer '3 Idiots' bagged five honours at the first Chevrolet Global Indian Music Awards (GIMA), a grand affair with legends like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle along with Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor gracing the event.

Director Rajkumar Hirani's superhit film won awards for best engineer for Bishwadeep Chatterjee and Anup Dev; best lyricist for Swanand Kirkire; best playback singer for Shaan and Shantanu Moitra; most popular song on Red FM for 'All Izz Well'; and best film album.

Held Wednesday at the Yash Raj Studios in Andheri West, GIMA is an initiative of Wizcraft International Entertainment to honour talent across film and non-film music.

Singing legend Asha Bhosle, who is also the goodwill ambassador of GIMA, kicked the event off with non-film song 'Allah Rakha'.

After that the awards were rolled out.

'Iktara' from 'Wake Up Sid' scored a hattrick by winning awards for best playback singer for Kavita Seth, HT Reader's choice singer of the year and best film song.

One of the main highlights of the event was the best devotional album trophy awarded to India's Nightingale Lata Mangeshkar, her first ever award in a non-film category.

'I'm very grateful to people for giving me this award. This is my first non-film award ever. I never got an award in this category earlier, so this is truly special,' said Lata, who got the award for her renditions in the album 'Sri Hanuman Chalisa'.

Apart from these, many musicians in the non-film categories were honoured -- Dr. L. Subramaniam for best Carnatic album instrumental, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma and Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia for best Hindustani classical album instrumental and an award for outstanding contribution by an indian on global stage was given to Pt. Ravi Shankar.

Maharashtra government was honoured for the best anti-piracy initiative, while Sunidhi Chauhan and Sonu Niigam were honoured for best live performances.

Many big names from the industry like Anil Kapoor, Rajkumar Hirani, Yash Chopra, Ritesh Deshmukh were present at the event, which was hosted by Shreyas Talpade, Dia Mirza and Sajid Khan.

Among the musicians who attended the award function were Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Shankar Mahadevan, Loy Mendosa, Adnan Sami, Shaan, Sonu Niigaam, Usha Uthup, Dr. L Subramanium, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Jagjit Singh, Kailash Kher and Richa Sharma. Lyricists Javed Akhtar and Prasoon Joshi were also there.