President Pranab Mukherjee conferred the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships and Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards for 2013 at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan on Friday.
Akademi Ratna, the Fellowship, was conferred on Dr. Kanak Rele, R. Sathyanarayana, and Mahesh Elkunchwar. The Fellows received a cash purse of Rs. 3 lakh. The awards for overall contribution and scholarship in the performing arts were presented to Mysore V. Subramanya and N. Ramanathan. Ritwik Sanyal and Veena Hari Sahasrabuddhe for Hindustani vocal music; Hashmat Ali Khan and Dhruba Jyoti Ghosh for the Hindustani instrumental music; Aruna Sairam and Hyderabad Brothers D. Sesha Chary and D. Raghava Chary for Carnatic vocal music; Trichy Sankaran and Thiruvizha Jayasankar for Carnatic instrumental music and Bankim Sethi for Odissi music were given awards in the field of music.
In the field of dance, Jamuna Krishnan and B. Herambanathan were conferred with the award for Bharatanatyam; Rajashree Shirke for Kathak; Kalamandalam M.P.S. Namboodiri for Kathakali; Chinta Seetha Ramanjaneyulu for Kuchipudi; Sangeeta Dash for Odissi; Jogen Dutta Bayan for Sattriya dance; Srinivasa Rangachariar for Arayer Sevai and Dhaneswar Swain for Mardal drumming.
For their contribution to theatre, eight artists — Rameshwar Prem and Pundalik Narayan Naik for playwriting; Kamalakar Muralidhar Sontakke, Kewal Dhaliwal and Prasanna Ramaswamy for direction; Vasant Josalkar and Kusum Haidar for acting and Krishna Arjun Borkar for make-up — were given the award.
Artists who have been given awards for their work in traditional, folk and tribal dance, music, theatre and puppetry are: Raj Begum for folk music of Jammu and Kashmir; T.A.R. Nadi Rao and N. Jeeva Rao for folk music of Tamil Nadu; Gurdial Singh for instrument making; Mohan Singh Khangura for Rabindrasangeet; Umakanta Bairagi for Tokari Geet and Dehbichar Geet of Assam; Lilavati M. Kavi for puppetry; Meenakshi K. for instrument-making (the Ghatam of Tamil Nadu) and Shaikh Riyajoddin Abdul Gani for folk theatre of Maharashtra.
The Sangeet Natak Akademi awardees received a cash purse of Rs. 1 lakh, an angavastram and a tamrapatra.
