New Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner, who defied government pressure for an early election in riot- torn Gujarat and oversaw fair polls in Kashmir, has won Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

The Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation on July 30 named James Lyngdoh as one of this year's seven winners, for his work in government service as the man in charge of elections in the world's largest democracy.

"Mr Lyngdoh is being recognised for his convincing validation of free and fair elections as the foundation and best hope of secular democracy in strife-torn India," the foundation said in a statement.

Lyngdoh rose from relative anonymity in 2002 when he rejected the ruling Hindu nationalists' plans for a snap poll in Gujarat, where more than 1,000 people died in Hindu-Muslim bloodshed, on security grounds. The move prompted bitter and sometimes personal criticism of Lyngdoh, a Christian, by Hindu hardliners.

In the same year, he oversaw tense elections in Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, which were regarded as the fairest in almost two decades despite widespread violence by separatists. Business Week magazine recently named Lyngdoh one of Asia's 25 leaders at the forefront of change.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award was established in 1957 in honour of the third Philippine President to recognise people who show the same selfless service.

ANI