Radio channel to honour women achievers

CHENNAI: With Women’s Day just a month away, BIG FM has announced an awards ceremony to recognise and honour exceptional women entertainers in six different fields. Voting for the same has commenced and will be done through SMS and the internet.The achievements of women in six chosen fields- Cinema, Television, Music, Media, Dance and Sports- have been recognised, and nominations for the same announced. Called BIG Salute Awards, they will be presented in four categories in cinema and music. For cinema, Tapsee, Amala Paul and Anjali are vying with each other for the best entertainer award, while Anjalidevi, Rajasulochana and Sachu are contenders for the Lifetime Achievement section. Madhumitha, Sudha and Priya are the filmmakers in the fray in the film direction category, while Chinmayee, Rohini and Deepa Venkat will battle it out to become the best dubbing artistes.In the Television segment, two awards each have been instituted for the fiction and non-fiction category. Actors and TV hosts Simran, Rohini, Suhasini and Sukanya compete in various sections in the TV segment, while Shruti Haasan and Aishwarya Dhanush are among the nominees in the music segment. Vaishnavi Sainath, Vinisha, Harini, Jeevitha, Chitra Visveshwaran, Alarmel Valli, Malavika Sarukkai, Girija Raghuram, Kala Master and Brinda are the nominees in different categories in the Dance segment. In a bid to encourage the young achievers and honour the veterans, awards will be presented to both seniors and young achievers.Yesteryear actor Poornima Bhagyaraj, singer Shobha Chandrasekar and gynaecologist Dr Kamala Selvaraj form the jury for this unique awards initiative to honour accomplished women in different spheres of life.The final awards will be presented on February 18.