Sangeet Akademi Fellowships and Akademi Awards 2010

ViCE- President of India confers Sangeet Akademi Fellowships and Akademi Awards 2010 on 22 JULY 2011-The Honourable Vice-President of India, SHRI M. HAMID ANSARI, conferred the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships and Akademi Awards for 2010 at a special ceremony on 22 July 2011 at 1800 hours at Kamani Auditorium, New Delhi. This year, four eminent personalities were conferred the Akademi’s Fellowships, while thirty-six artists and two scholars received the Akademi Awards for 2010. Kumari Selja, Honourable Minister of Culture, also graced the Award ceremony.

The highest honour of Akademi Fellowship (Akademi Ratna Sadasyata) was conferred on eminent vocalist Girija Devi, renowned dance guru Nataraja Ramakrishna, Dhrupad maestro Rahim Fahimuddin Dagar, and Mridangam vidwan T. K. Murthy. They received the purse money of Rupees three lakh, besides an angavastram and a tamrapatra. The Fellowship of the Akademi is a rare honour, which is bestowed on a very limited number of artists and scholars at a given time.

The eminent representatives of music, dance and theatre to be honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 2010 received purse money of Rupees one lakh, an angavastram and tamrapatra.

In the field of music, nine artists, namely Chhanu Lal Mishra and Yashpaul for Hindustani Vocal Music, Budhaditya Mukherjee (Sitar) and Nityanand Haldipur (Flute) for Hindustani Instrumental Music, Suguna Purushothaman and Mysore Nagamani Srinath for Carnatic Vocal music, Nagai R Muralidharan (Violin) and Srimushnam V. Rajarao (Mridangam) for Carnatic Instrumental Music, and M. V. Simhachala Sastry (Harikatha) for Other Major Traditions of Music received the Award.

In the field of dance, nine practitioners, namely, Malabika Mitra (Kathak), Kalamandalam Kombil Gopala Vasudevan Nair (Kathakali), Phanjoubam Iboton Singh (Manipuri), Rathna Kumar (Kuchipudi), Aruna Mohanty (Odissi), Manik Borbayan (Sattriya), Uttara Asha Coorlawala (Creative & Experimental), Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar (Other Major Traditions of Dance & Dance Theatre - Kutiyattam), and S Rajeswari (Music for Dance – Bharatanatyam) received the Award.

In the field of theatre also, eight persons were honoured. They include playwrights D Vizai Bhaskar (Telugu) and Atamjit Singh (Punjabi), directors Veenapani Chawla and Urmil Kumar Thapaliyal, and actors Dilip Phabhavalkar, Banwari Taneja, Maya Krishna Rao and Swatilekha Sengupta.For their contribution to Other Traditional/Folk/ Tribal Music/ Dance/ Theatre forms, Harbhajan Singh Namdhari (Gurbani Kirtan of Punjab), Nazeer Ahmad Khan Warsi & Naseer Ahmad Khan Warsi (joint awards in Qawwali), Dwijen Mukherjee (Rabindrasangeet, West Bengal), T. Somasundaram (Folk Dance of Tamil Nadu), Krishna Kumari (Bakha folk music of Jammu and Kashmir), Chandatai Jagdish Tiwadi (Bharud folk theatre of Maharashtra), K. Chinna Anjanamma (Tolu Bommalata – Shadow Puppetry of Andhra Pradesh), K. V. Ramakrishnan and K. C. Ramakrishnan (joint award for Pava Kathakali – Glove Puppetry of Kerala) received the Akademi Award.

Ashok D. Ranade was honoured with the Award for his scholarship in music and Jaidev Taneja for his overall contribution to theatre.

The Akademi Fellowship (Akademi Ratna Sadasyata) and Akademi Award (Akademi Puraskar) are the most coveted national honours conferred on performing artists, gurus and scholars of the performing arts. These honours are decided by the Akademi’s General Council, the apex body consisting of eminent artists, scholars and nominees of the Government of India and of different States and Union Territories of the country.

Sangeet Natak Akademi, established by the Government of India on 31 May 1952, is the National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama. It was created as the apex body in the country for the task of preservation and promotion of the performing art traditions of India. One of the important activities of the Akademi has been to give recognition and honours to artists in order to set standards in the performing arts, and to restore art and the artists to their rightful place in independent India.