Tuesday, December 27 2005 19:10 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Kiran Karnik, President of NASSCOM, the apex body for the software industry, has been named the 'Dataquest IT Person of the Year 2005'.

The Lifetime Award for 2005 has been conferred on Hemant Sonawala for his contributions to the growth of the domestic IT industry in India.

The Pathbreaker Award for 2005 went to R Chandrashekhar, Joint Secretary (e-governance) in the Government of India's Department of IT (Ministry of Communication and IT), for his key role in laying the foundations of e-Governance in India.

The special Dataquest Awards panel was chaired by S Ramadorai, CEO of TCS and Chairman of the Panel; Dr D B Phatak of IIT Bombay; Deepak Ghaisas, India CEO of i-Flex Solutions; P K Vohra, head of IT, ICICI Bank; Lalit Sawhney, President of CSI and senior VP, Reliance Infocomm; K Jaishankar, CEO, Ingram Micro India; Neelam Dhawan, Managing Director of Microsoft India and Pradeep Gupta, publisher, CyberMedia.

"Karnik has led from the front while fighting the outsourcing backlash and helping give the software industry a fresh lease of life", said the special DQ awards panel that announced the awards.

"Karnik has lent his support to the software services industry in its most trying times and relentlessly championed India's cause in the outsourcing backlash debate with his hallmark sincerity, candour and conviction", it said.