Sahitya Akademi Awards

Why is in news? Sahitya Akademi announces list of recipients of Bal Sahitya Puraskar & winners of Yuva Puraskar

The Sahitya Akademi has announced a list of 22 recipients of its Bal Sahitya Puraskar and 20 winners of its Yuva Puraskar for this year.

In the Hindi language category, Suryanath Singh won the Bal Sahitya Puraskar for his collection of short stories, ‘Kotuk App’.

In Marathi language, Eknath Avhad has won the Bal Sahitya Puraskar for his ‘Chhand Dei Aanand’ while Vishakha Vishwanath has won the Yuva Puraskar for ‘Swatahala Swataviruddh Ubhe Kartana’.

Renowned children’s author Sudha Murty won Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her collection of stories titled ‘Grandparents’ Bag of Stories’.

Prominent among Yuva Puraskar awardees are Anirudh Kanisetti for ‘Lords of the Deccan: Southern India from Chalukyas to Cholas' and Atul Kumar Rai for his novel ‘Chandpur ki Chanda’.

Sahitya Akademi award:

Sahitya Akademi award established in 1954, is a literary honour that is conferred annually by Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of letters.

Akademi gives 24 awards annually to literary works in the languages it has recognized and an equal number of awards to literary translations from and into the languages of India.

Besides the 22 languages enumerated in the Constitution of India, the Sahitya Akademi has recognised English and Rajasthani as languages in which its programme may be implemented.

The Sahitya Akademi award is the second-highest literary honour by the Government of India, after the Jnanpith award.

Criteria for Choosing Awardee:

The author must be of Indian Nationality.

Book/work eligible for the award must be an outstanding contribution to the language and literature to which it belongs.

When equal merit for books of two or more are found, certain criteria like total literary contribution and standing of authors shall be taken into consideration for declaring the award.

Other Sahitya Akademi Awards:

Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puraskar is given to an author based on his/her total contribution to children literature and relates to books first published during the five years immediately preceding the year of Award.

Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar relates to books published by an author of the age of 35 and below.

Jnanpith Award:

The Jnanpith award is the highest literary award in India and can only be conferred annually upon an Indian citizen.

English along with other languages mentioned in Indian Constitution (8th Schedule) is considered for the Award.

The prize carries a cash award of Rs. 11 lakhs, a citation, and a bronze replica of Vagdevi (Saraswati), the goddess of learning.

It is sponsored by the cultural organization Bharatiya Jnanpith.