Hindi Awards Global Indian Music Academy Awards 2015 - Cast & Crew

Kanika Kapoor is a renowned playback signer in India. She is very much appreciated for her continuous efforts to keep her singing memorable and versatile. She is born and brought up in Lucknow. Being a singer by passion, she started her concerts at a very tender age of 12. She also collaborated with All India Radio then and moved along with family, to Mumbai to contribute more into music industry. Though she has been contributing to Indian Music industry consistently, she got a huge applaud in 2014. She sang the Baby Doll song in "Ragini MMS" and gained a huge appreciation from all kinds of audiences in India. This song has become so huge hit that it is awarded as the number one song of the year by Radio Mirchi, for the year 2014. This song also fetched her best female singer award by Stardust. Not only the item numbers but Kanika Kapoor sang for lead ladies as well. "Lovely" in Happy New Year is one of those songs. Again in the year 2015, she gained popularity through the song "Chittiyaan Kalaiyaan", from the movie Roy. She also bagged a song from movie Ek Paheli Leela, starring Sunny Leone. While she has seen an accelerated growth in career, she could not be very lucky in the personal front. She got married at a very early age of 18. She is blessed with 3 kids out of this marriage. However, she had to break the marriage and stay divorced. She took part in a North America tour called "SLAM ! The Tour". She performed along with Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone. This has been another milestone in her career. In addition she is associated with few of the NGOs who are working for Child welfare and safety.

Shraddha Kapoor, born on March 3rd, 1989, is a young emerging actress of Hindi Film Industry. She is the daughter of veteran actor Shakti Kapoor and niece of famous actress Padmini Kolhapure. Shraddha started her acting career in the year 2010 with a film called Teen Patti which had Amitabh Bachchan, Ben Kingsley and R. Madhavan in it. Though the film did not do well at the box office, her performance got some attention. Her second film was Luv Ka the End (a teen comedy), opposite Taaha Shah, which failed to perform at the box office but Shraddha’s performance in the movie was very well appreciated by the film critics. Even after giving two consecutive flops, Shraddha went on to take a major risk and cancelled her three-film contract with Yash Raj Films, signing a Mohit Suri directorial flick Aashiqui 2 which was a sequel to a 1990 cult film Aashiqui.

A. R. Rahman is a Legendary Music Composer, prominently known for his rocking music for the movie “The Slumdog Millionaire”. He had won a couple of Oscars for this album and made India proud.  Allah-Rakha Rahman’s birth name is A.S.Dileep Kumar. He was born on January 6th, 1967 in Chennai. His music journey had begun at the age of 4 when he learned piano. At the age of 11, he joined the Maestro Ilayaraja's troupe as a Keyboard player. He made his debut as a composer with the legendary film-maker G.R.Maniratnam’s film “Roja” which came out in 1992. Some of his popular music albums were for the movies like Rangeela, Bombay, Dil Se and Lagaan: Once upon a time in India.

On 22 July, 1995, Armaan Malik was born in the city of Mumbai, Maharashtra. He is a playback singer by profession. Armaan belongs to a music family. His father, Daboo Malik, is also a singer and music director. The singer is the nephew of the famous Hindi music director, Anu Malik. Armaan has a brother, Amaal Malik, who is also a music director.

Shantanu Mukherjee is a very popular singer and known by the name of Shaan. He was born on September 30, 1972. His grandfather Jahar Mukherjee was the lyricist, his father Manas Mukherjee was the late music director, and his sister Sagarika is a singer. Shaan lost his father at the age of 13 after that his mother became a singer and took the responsibility of the entire family.

Mihir Joshi is a Bollywood Hindi singer, anchor, show host, and radio jockey. He was born on 15 March 1981. He did his Engineering in Electronics from the Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering. He started his career with the stage name Music Man Mihir as a Radio Jockey. He formed and fronted three English Bands that consists of The King Keys in 2006, The Works in 2007, and The Mihir Joshi Band in 2012. His first Hindi band named Bombay Rock Project is known for its performance at India’s Got Talent Season 3.

Sourav Roy was born in a small town in West Bengal, Asansol. Sourav's father worked in the government as well as a table player, and his mother was a vocalist. He has completed his degree from Trinity College of Music and has learned music from Mr. Sam Engineer in Kolkata. He won awards as a composer and producer. He is also a singer-songwriter and an Independent Artist. He was a part of Fusion bands such as TaalYagna and TaalTantra, and after some time, Sourav started working as a full-time arranger and producer. Sorry Bhai, his first project in Mumbai, debuted in 2008.

Shankar Mahadevan, a well-renowned, talented and famous music composer, and singer. An accomplished musician in Tamil cinema, he is a part of the Shankar Ehsaan Loy trio team that provides music to Bollywood and other International films. He has won various Indian and multiple National Film Award. His most famous albums include, “Breathless“- Album that first gave him fame, including the song, "Breathless," in which he sings throughout the whole song without pausing to breathe and “Nine” - Nine is Shankar's most recent album. Each song is a representation of a "mood," including joy, sadness, love, etc. He was also invited by UNESCO and the US State Department to perform at the UN General Assembly Hall for the finale of the International Jazz Festival on 30 April 2012 which is a thing of pride. Shankar has always considered himself as a restless student wanting to learn more every time. He says he’s thirsty and want to learn every time and experiment with something new. He wants to be a perfectionist. Shanker also feels that Karnatak music is the most powerful form of music and he himself started with Karnataka classic which he says is the best to create a prominent base for music. Music is the thing which excites Shanker the most, and he would always be attached to it. Personal Life: Shanker Mahadevan was born in Chennai to a Tamil family but was later brought to Mumbai and was raised there. Being born into a Tamil family and later raised in Mumbai, he knows both Hindi and Tamil language but is not well versed with Tamil and Malayalam. He finished his schooling from OLPS High School in Chembur and his engineering in computer science from R.A.I.T (D Y Patil, Navi Mumbai). His wife, Sangeeta is Maharashtrian and oldest son Siddharth Mahadevan. Also, a singer, made his debut on the 2013 Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’s song, Zinda. Shankar’s youngest son, Shivam Mahadevan, also a singer made his debut in 2013 in the movie Dhoom 3’s song, Bande Hain Hum Uske. Mahadevan is fluent in Marathi, Tamil, Hindi, Urdu and English.

Zakir Hussain is a veteran and prominent film and television actor from India. He was famous for doing comedic and negative roles and his best performance was from the dramatic film, Sarkar in 2005 where he played the role of Rasheed; a don from Dubai. Followed by this is the 2007 neo-noir film, Johnny Gaddaar by Sriram Raghavan. He is Shardul, one of the gang that operates a gambling club along with Vikram (played by Neil Nitin Mukesh), Prakash (played by Vinay Pathak), Swshadri (played by Dharmendra) and Shiva (played by Dayanand Shetty). He was notably remembered by every people on the street and they started to call him Shardul. This is the film that pays him well and gained him so much fame.

Zakir was born and raised up in the village of Janikhurd Tehsil in the district of Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. He got fascinated with theaters and cinema when he was studying in New Delhi. And then, he initiated his career in a small time theater and later he joined a group in Mandi House called, Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts. Afterwards, he also joined the respected National School of Drama and had a graduation in year 1993.

After performing in theaters for few years, he moved to Mumbai to work as a television and film actor. He first speared in serials like Kitty Party, Firdaus and Gaatha from which he gained a lot of recognition. His first film was Ek Hasina Thi in 2004 under the production of Ram Gopal Varma, from which he played the character of Sanjiv Nanda. From this film, Zakir appeared in two scenes only, but the director was impressed by is acting so he offered him the role of Rasheed in the film, Sarkar. His character as a villain was acclaimed and he got the New Menace Award in Stardust Film Awards in 2006. Since then, he started to appear in most of Varma’s productions.

Aside from acting, he is also a brilliant percussionist and he sings well. Some of the films that he did include Dishyen, Kala Juma, D, D, James, Shiva, The Killer, Deadline: Sirf 24 Ghante, Risk, Fool n Final, Darling, Contract, Radio and a lot more. Some of his recent films are Hoiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty where he played the role of Alvin D’Souza, the Bollywood action film Singham Returns and the upcoming thriller film, Chaarfutiya Chhokare.

He was also roped in to do the character of Anand Upadhyay (Yudh’s companion) in the psychological mini-serial, Yudh in 2014.

Shahid Kapoor also identifies as the name Shahid Khattar. He is an Indian movie or film artist or say, actor. He was born in the year 1981, February 25. He is being honoured with the two Awards of Film fare from the four suggested nominations. The boy child of the actors Neelima Azeem and Pankaj Kapur, the junior Kapoor commenced his professional career by acting in some musical videos and commercial videos of television. He started his debut movie by playing the lead role in a romantic and passionate comedy movie, named “IshqVishk” in the year 2003. For the movie “IshqVishk”, Shahid won an Award of Film fare event for best male actor for a debut. Shahid Kapoor pursued it with playing the roles in the minor booming movies like as Fida in the year 2004 and movie Shikhar in the year 2005. Then, he was starring in the greatly booming family entertaining movie, “Vivah” of Sooraj R. Barjatya in the year 2006. Shahid Kapoor received nominations for an event of Film Fare Awards. For the Best Leading Actor for representing a disturbed Entrepreneur in the romantic comedy movie “Jab We Met” of Imtiaz Ali released in the year 2007 and for the role of twin’s brother in the thriller movie “Kaminey” of Vishal Bhardwaj in the year 2009. From the year 2010 to the year 2013, Shahid Kapoor is featured in the sequence for the flops in the box office that directed for his career setback. Then, the action movie “Rajkumar” in the year 2013 is established as his first professional success in the three years. Shahid Kapoor played the role of the Hamlet in significantly highly praised movie “Haider” of Vishal Bhardwaj in the year 2014. For the movie” Haider”, Kapoor won quite a few of Awards that involve the Award of Film fare event for the best Actor. Shahid Kapoor is very fond of bike and cars. Black Range Rover Vogue, white Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar XK RS are one of his favorite collection. He loves to go for a ride on his favouite bike Harley Davidson. During his free time, he prefers reading books and dancing. He is very fond of collecting different types of watches and love travelling. Recently, he got married to a Delhi- based girl Mira Rajput on 6th July 2015.

Ankit Tiwari was born on March 6, 1986 in Kanpur, India. He is a drastically advancing music composer and a playback singer who had given back to back hit albums and songs. He got into the Bollywood Cinema world in the year 2010 until the present. His works are quite impressive and blissful listening to them. Initially, he entered into the film industry as a music director after which he also lingered into playback singing. In the year 2013, he got an award for the music director category. Also, his album contested for a couple of awards in the Filmfare Awards.

Most famous for his songs in Aashiqui 2, Arijit Singh has established himself as a prominent playback singer and music programmer. He was the runner-up in Fame Gurukul, a singing competition, in 2005. He then went on to win another singing reality show, 10 Ke 10 Le Gaye Dil.

Born in 1987 in West Bengal, Arjit was trained in classical music by his aunt and mother. He had a passion for music from an early age and his parents decided to get him a professional trainer, Rajendra Prasad Hazari for classical music and Dhirendra Prasad Hazari to train him at tabla.  His teachers encouraged Arijit to try out for Fame Gurukul in 2005 and chose to promote the Indian classical music genre.

Pritam Chakraborty gave Arjit a chance and signed him for three films; Crook, Golmaal 3, and Action Replayy. He made his debut singing “Phir Mohabbat” for Murder 2 in 2011. This kickstarted his career as a playback singer and led to him singing songs such as; “Raabta", “ Duaa", and “Phir Le Aya Dil", earning nominations for the latter two in Mirchi Music Award With the release of the hit song “Tum Hi Ho” Singh became a common household name. The song helped him win nine awards from various award shows. He has since sung.

Arjit is known as a down to earth, hardworking singer. His hobbies include badminton and writing.