President conferred Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowships 2013

Pranab Mukherjee, the President of India on 11 April 2014 conferred the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships (Akademi Ratna) and Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (Akademi Puraskar) for the year 2013. The fellowship and awards were given at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi.

The two fellowship and Awards are national honours bestowed on performing artists as well as teachers and scholars in the field performing arts.  

Akademi Fellowships that presents a cash prize of 3 lakh rupees were conferred on
• Dr. Kanak Rele
• R. Sathyanarayana
• Mahesh Elkunchwar

The Sangeet Natak Akademi awardees received a cash purse of 1 lakh rupees, an angavastram and a tamrapatra.

 The Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in the field of Music were presented to
• Overall contribution and scholarship in the performing arts – Mysore V. Subramanya and N. Ramanathan
• For Hindustani vocal music – Ritwik Sanyal and Veena Hari Sahasrabuddhe
• For the Hindustani instrumental music – Hashmat Ali Khan and Dhruba Jyoti Ghosh
• For Carnatic vocal music – Aruna Sairam and Hyderabad Brothers D. Sesha Chary and D. Raghava Chary
• For Carnatic instrumental music – Trichy Sankaran and Thiruvizha Jayasankar
• For Odissi music – Bankim Sethi

The Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in the field of Dance were presented to
• For Bharatanatyam – Jamuna Krishnan and B. Herambanathan
• For Kathak – Rajashree Shirke
• For Kathakali – Kalamandalam M.P.S. Namboodiri
• For Kuchipudi – Chinta Seetha Ramanjaneyulu
• For Odissi – Sangeeta Dash
• For Sattriya dance – Jogen Dutta Bayan
• For Arayer Sevai – Srinivasa Rangachariar
• For Mardal drumming – Dhaneswar Swain

The Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for their contribution to theatre to eight artists, namely
• For playwriting - Rameshwar Prem and Pundalik Narayan Naik
• For direction - Kamalakar Muralidhar Sontakke, Kewal Dhaliwal and Prasanna Ramaswamy
• For acting - Vasant Josalkar and Kusum Haidar
• For make-up – Krishna Arjun Borkar

The award for the work in traditional, folk and tribal dance, music, dance and puppetry to
• For folk music of Jammu and Kashmir – Raj Begum
• For folk music of Tamil Nadu – T.A.R. Nadi Rao and N. Jeeva Rao
• For instrument making – Gurdial Singh
• For Rabindrasangeet – Mohan Singh Khangura
• For Tokari Geet and Dehbichar Geet of Assam – Umakanta Bairagi
• For puppetry – Lilavati M Kavi
• For instrument-making (the Ghatam of Tamil Nadu) – Meenakshi K
• For folk theatre of Maharashtra – Shaikh Riyajoddin Abdul Gani

Sangeet Natak Akademi, established in 1953, is responsible for the promotion and preservation of the performing arts of the country. One of the important activities of the Akademi is to recognize the contribution of outstanding musicians, dancers and theatre artists, bestowing on them its Fellowships and Awards. The aim of the activity is to create benchmarks in the practice of the performing arts.