Fareed Zakaria - Honors and Awards

Honors and Awards

Zakaria has been nominated five times for the National Magazine Award, and won it once, for his columns and commentary. His show has won a Peabody award and been nominated for several Emmys. He was conferred India Abroad Person of the Year 2008 award on March 20, 2009, in New York. Filmmaker Mira Nair, who won the award for year 2007, honored her successor. He has received honorary degrees at the University of Miami, Oberlin College, Bates College, Brown University, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University.

In January 2010, Zakaria was given the Padma Bhushan award by the Indian government for his contribution to the field of journalism.

He serves on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations, the New America Foundation, Columbia University's International House, and Shakespeare and Company. He was a trustee of Yale and also served on the board of the Trilateral Commission.

In 2005, Zakaria was awarded the Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize from the Anti-Defamation League ("ADL"). In July 2010 the ADL expressed its opposition to the Park51 Islamic cultural center and mosque, planned for a site that is two blocks from the World Trade Center site. Zakaria returned the award in protest, saying that he could not "in good conscience keep it anymore". In support of his decision, he stated that the larger issue in the controversy is freedom of religion in America, even while acknowledging that he is not a religious person. He also wrote that a "moderate, mainstream version of Islam" is essential to winning the war on terror. On the August 8, 2010, edition of Fareed Zakaria GPS, Zakaria addressed the issue, stating that in returning his award, he had hoped that the ADL would reconsider their stance.