The Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) felicitated the winners of the India Gem & Jewellery Awards, in Mumbai recently. The awards this year is in its 40th edition. An independent jury selected a total of 31 winners from over 270 nominations received from across India. Gemological Institute of America (GIA) is the title partner of India Gem & Jewellery Awards, while BVC Logistics is the Platinum Partner and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) is the Knowledge Partner. Present at the inauguration and lamp lighting ceremony at the awards function were Chief Guest, Kapil Sibal Hon'ble Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology & Law and Justice; Presiding Guest, K.H. Muniyappa, Hon'ble Minister of State(Independent charge) for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), Government of India; GJEPC Brand Ambassador & Bollywood Diva, Ms. Sonam Kapoor; Vipul Shah, Chairman, GJEPC; Pankaj Parekh, Vice Chairman, GJEPC along with other dignitaries and officials. The glittering awards ceremony was held at the Jamshed Bhaba Theatre, NCPA, and was anchored by the versatile and tremendously talented theatre and cinema personality, Boman Irani.%% This year the process of selecting award winners followed a rigorous methodology and judging criteria based on a proprietary quantitative model developed by D&B, which was primarily based on computation of composite scores calculated by considering various financial and quantitative indicators. The jury members, who selected the final winners included Nirupa Bhatt, Managing Director (India & ME), GIA; K. Subrahmanyan, Executive Director, Union Bank of India and Pawan Bindal, Director, Dun & Bradstreet. GJEPC announced 9 special awards in the current year based on special classifications such as emerging performer, women entrepreneur and lifetime achievement amongst others. “I would like to congratulate all the winners of the India Gems & Jewellery Awards 2013, for their innovations and contribution to the overall gems & jewellery industry in India. It’s a proud moment for all of us this evening as we felicitate the best players of the industry based on various parameters. I would also like to appreciate all the nominees who took proactive interest in participating in these awards and wish them all the best in their future endeavors. Last but not the least, I would like to thank the jury for their time and support in selecting these winners.” said Vipul Shah, Chairman, Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council.%% Amongst other awards, Dharmanandan Diamonds Pvt Ltd won the award for Most Socially Responsible Company, and Hari Krishna Exports Pvt Ltd won the award for the Most Innovative Company, while Shree Ramkrishna Exports Pvt Ltd won the Best Exporter award for 2012. From the special award categories, H.K. Designs (India) bagged the award as the Emerging Performer of the Year, and Bharati D Shah from B R Designs won the Best Women Entrepreneur award while the Life Time Achievement Award was awarded to Rajendra A. Shah who is the managing trustee on the board of the Gemological Institute of India (GII). The GJEPC’s India Gem & Jewellery Awards, which was exclusively open for GJEPC members, felicitated excellent and meritorious performances of gems and jewellery exporters, on the basis of their export performance, value additions, employment generation and investment on R&D among other parameters during the year 2012-13. Besides recognizing the efforts of the exporters, GJEPC also honored the top foreign buyers from across the globe in diamond, gold and colored gemstones, international trade associations, agency supplying gold to exporters and the banks financing the gems and jewellery players. The awards are co-partnered by P C Jeweller, State Bank of India, International Gemological Institute (IGI), Malca-Amit JK, RMC Gems India Ltd., Shree Ramakrishna Exports, Kiran Gems, Hari Krishna Exports and HVK.