Preity presents award to Sehgal Foundation

Bollywood actress Preity Zinta presented a distinguished service award to the Sehgal Foundation for its work on rural development and women empowerment in Indian villages over the past 15 years.
The award was presented to Suri Sehgal and the Sehgal Foundation at an event over the weekend in a Washington, a media release said.
The Sehgal Foundation was established in 1999 after Suri Sehgal sold his seeds business to a large multinational.
Since then, he and the foundation has been working amongst the poorest of the poor in rural India by helping them uplift themselves.
The Foundation works with the villagers in the areas of water, sustainable agricultural productivity, and capacity and governance.

At the event, Nilima Mehra of Global Television Network was also awarded with the distinguished service award.

In an interaction with the audience, Zinta spoke about her latest movies.
Talking about her latest movie, "Heaven on Earth," which was shot in Canada, Zinta said, she met Deepa Mehta, the director of the movie in London.
"Deepa asked me if I would do her new movie. I thought it was an art film, I told her nobody watches art films."
"Mehta said it was not an art film, but a regular commercial film. So, I agreed to do the film," she said.

"I enjoyed working in the film, except that my fellow actor slapped me in the film very hard that was painful and upsetting."
She said it was a serious film and was about domestic abuse.
Zinta, who loves reading reminded the audiences that although they lived far away from home, but their thoughts were always with their homeland.
"My advice to all women is to love yourself, nobody will if you don't.
People will treat you well if you treat yourself well. Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon," she said.
Talking about her own home production "Ishq in France," which went through a lot of problems, Zinta said: "We shot that film in weather of two degrees to minus twenty three degrees Celsius in France.

We experienced one disaster after another, so the movie was delayed."
"My mother said, things happen, so take them in your stride," Zinta added.