President presents 2016 Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards

President Ram Nath Kovind presented Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Fellowships (Akademi Ratna) and Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the year 2016 at function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi.

Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards

The Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Fellowships and Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards are recognised as among most coveted national honours bestowed on performing artists as well as teachers and scholars of performing arts in the country. They are given by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama
Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards are given in categories of music, dance, theatre, other traditional arts and puppetry, and for contribution and scholarship in performing arts. The award since 2003 consists of Rs. 1 lakh, a citation, an angavastram (shawl), and tamrapatra (brass plaque).

2016 list of winners

Akademi Fellows

Arvind Parikh
R Vedavalli
Ram Gopal Bajaj
Sunil Kothari

Akademi Awards 2016

Music

Hindustani Vocal Music: Padma Talwalkar
Hindustani Vocal Music: Prabhakar Karekar.
Hindustani Instrumental Music- Tabla: Arvind Mulgaonkar
Hindustani Instrumental Music- Violin: Kala Ramnath
Carnatic Vocal Music: Neela Ramgopal
Carnatic Vocal Music: K Omanakutty
Carnatic Instrumental Music – Mridangam: J Vaidhyanathan
Carnatic Instrumental Music – Violin: Mysore M Manjunath
Other Major Traditions of Music- Sugam Sangeet: Ratnamala Prakash.
Other Major Traditions of Music – Sugam Sangeet: Ahmed Hussain and Mohd Hussain.
Other Major Traditions of Music – Nata Sankirtana, Manipur: Ningthoujam Shyamchand Singh

Classical Dance

Bharatanatyam: Geeta Chandran.
Kathak Dance: Jitendra Maharaj
Kathakali: Kalamandalam Ramachandran Unnithan
Manipuri: Maisnam Kaminikumar Singh
Kuchipudi: A B Bala Kondala Rao
Odissi: Ratikant Mohapatra
Sattriya: Haricharan Bhuyan Borbayan
Chhau: Gopal Prasad Dubey
Contemporary: Anita R Ratnam

Theatre

Playwriting: Kusum Kumar
Direction: Satyabrata Rout
Direction: Bipin Kumar
Direction: Rajkamal Nayak
Acting: Gireesan V
Acting: Oinam Biramangol Singh
Acting: Mohan Joshi
Theatre Arts – Music for Theatre: Anjana Puri
Other Major Traditions of Theatre- Yakshgana: K Govind Bhat

Traditional/ Folk/Tribal Music/Dance/Theatre and Puppetry

Traditional Theatre (Kalavantulu), Andhra Pradesh: Annabattula Lakshmi, Mangatayaru and Annabattula Leela Folk Music, Gujarat: Yogesh Gadhavi
Folk Music, Himachal Pradesh: Vidyanand Saraik
Traditional Music, Goa: Somnath D Chari
Pala, Odisha: Laxmidhar Rout
Mand, Rajasthan: Chiranji Lal Tanwar
Folk Music (chakri), Jammu & Kashmir: Gulzar Ahmad Ganie
Folk Music, Bihar: Braj Kishor Dubey
Puppetry: Prabhitangsu Das
Puppetry: Dattatreya Aralikatte

Overall Contribution/ Scholarship in the Performing Arts

Avinash Pasricha
Pappu Venugopal Rao