MOI Awards 2017: And the Award Goes to……

MOI Awards-2017

MOI Awards-2017

2017 has been an eventful year for India. It has also thrown up some surprises. We saw influential Godmen being thrown into jail and protestors creating a ruckus over a movie that they claimed was a poor representation of the legendary Rajput princess. The year witnessed India and China almost going to war over Dokhlam but sense finally prevailed. Movie lovers were optimistic of Newton making it to the Oscars; however, many hearts were broken as it failed to get nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards. The economy did much better. Following a three-year low that was recorded in the April to June quarter, the GDP growth recovered to 6.3 in the September quarter. And finally, people got the answers to the much perplexing question “Why did Kattappa kill Bahubali”. All in all, there was never a dull moment in 2017.

Mapsofindia.com rounded off the year with a poll that was held from December 7, 2017, to January 7, 2018. Herein, people voted for their favorite personalities, places (and the worst too), and movies that were in the news in 2017. In some categories, the people’s choices were rather predictable but others threw up some surprises.

Despite all the criticism leveled against him, Kejriwal managed to trounce the Indian PM Narendra Modi in the Best Politician Category. 12049 (46.3 percent) of the people who took part in the polling choose Kejriwal as the best politician as compared to 10925 (42 percent) who voted in Narendra Modi’s favor. The current president of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi, came a distant third with just 2154 (8.3 percent) votes.

Though Newton did not make it to the Oscars but it definitely won the hearts of the viewers. 46.4 percent rated it as the best movie of 2017 in MOI Award. Jolly LLB2 was second with 23.5 percent votes, while Bahubali managed to get 10.1 percent of the votes. Amit Masurkar was noted for his brilliant direction of Newton. Among Indian directors, he bagged the top spot with 55 percent votes. Subhash Kapoor, who directed Jolly LLB2 and Anurag Basu (Jagga Jasoos) came second and third with 26.7 percent and 9 percent votes respectively.

Though none of Shahrukh Khan’s movies made it in the MOI Awards, but that does not mean the suave and sophisticated actor’s popularity has dimmed. In the Best Actor (Male) category, Shahrukh Khan topped the charts with 30.8 percent votes. Akshay Kumar, whose performance was outstanding in Jolly LLB2 was second with 29.5 percent votes and Irrfan Khan came third with 22.7 percent votes. In the Best Actor (Female), Alia Bhatt trounced Vidya Balan by a narrow margin. Alia Bhatt who took the top honors was much appreciated for her role in Badrinath Ki Dulhania. She received 31.7 percent votes in comparison to the 29 percent that were bagged by Vidya Balan. The actress had received accolades for her stupendous performance in Tumhari Sulu. Bhumi Pednekar came third with 19 percent votes.

In the world of music Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghosal ruled the hearts of the Indian audience in 2017. Sonu Nigan was the top performer in the Best Singer (Male) category with 56 percent votes, while in the Best Singer (Female) it was Shreya Ghosal with 53 percent votes. Other performers in the male category were Arjit Singh and Armaan Malik, while Sunidhi Chauhan and Neha Kakkar bagged the second and third spot in the female category.

Vizag is one place where a lot of people would like to set up their home. 44.3 percent of the people voted for Vizag as the best city. Pune and Jaipur followed at the second and third spot with 15.5 percent and 11.5 percent of the votes. At the other end of the spectrum, was Varanasi. 51.6 percent of the voters rated it as the worst city. Dhanbad and Ghaziabad followed at the second and third spot with 17.2 percent and 14.9 percent of the votes.

People looking to set up a business would prefer to do it in Hyderabad. 36.9 percent voted for Hyderabad as the best city to do business. The second and third sports went to Navi Mumbai and Kolkata. Hyderabad was again the best sci-tech center in the country bagging 44.4 percent of the votes. New Delhi followed at the second spot, while Mumbai was at the third.

Voting results in the sports segment showed that India is a cricket-loving nation. Virat Kohli bagged the top spot with 32.6 percent votes, while P V Sidhu and Saikhom Mirabai came at the second and third spot.