Polio-stricken governor among Magsaysay winners

MANILA (Reuters) - A Philippine governor crippled by polio, an Indian couple providing medical care and education to tribal people and an unconventional Japanese publisher are among winners of this year's Magsaysay awards, its foundation announced on Thursday.

The awards, seen as Asia's equivalent of the Nobel prize, also honored Ahmad Syafii Maarif, the head of Indonesia's powerful Muhammadiyah group, Thai prosthetic limb manufacturer Therdchai Jivacate and Sri Lankan social worker Ananda Galappatti.

Grace Padaca, governor of the Philippine province of Isabela, received the award for government service. Crippled by childhood polio, she defeated a powerful political dynasty in the 2004 elections and was re-elected last year.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation named Prakash and Mandakini Amte for the community leadership award. The couple, both medical doctors, run a hospital and school for the Madia Gond tribals in a remote part of central India.

Akio Ishii received the award for journalism, literature and creative communication arts, the foundation said. Ishii is the head of publishing house Akashi Shoten, which has about 2,800 books in print that place discrimination, human rights and other difficult subjects in Japan's public domain, the foundation said.

The award for public service was given to the Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development Mutually Reinforcing Institutions, of the Philippines.

The awards, named for a popular Philippine president killed in a plane crash, were set up in 1957 by the trustees of the New York-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

More than 250 people and 17 groups, including the U.S. Peace Corps and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have been recognized by the foundation since the first awards in 1958.

(Reporting by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by David Fogarty)