President Droupadi Murmu will confer the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships (Akademi Ratna) and Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for 2024 and 2025 on 115 artists at a special investiture ceremony at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on August 13.
The awards recognise outstanding and sustained contributions to India’s performing arts, covering music, dance, theatre, folk and tribal arts, puppetry, traditional theatre and other allied forms.
Seven eminent artists have been selected for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, including Ramlal Bareth, A V Anand, Rita Ganguly, Puru Dadheech, Chittaranjan Jyotishi, Pasumarthi Rattaiah Sarma and Sudharani Raghupathy.
The awards for 2024 and 2025 cover a wide range of artistic disciplines and represent artists from different states and Union Territories.
Among the 2024 awardees in music are Hindustani vocalist Arun Nagesh Kashalkar, Dhrupad exponent Nirmalya Dey, sarangi player Bharat Bhushan Goswami, tabla player Sanjay Mukherjee, Carnatic vocalist Krishna Vageesh and flautist Rakesh Chaurasia.
The 2024 dance awardees include Bharatanatyam exponent Rajeswari Sainath, Kathak artist Bipul Chandra Das, Manipuri dancer Rajkumari Thambalsana Devi, Kuchipudi artist Veena Murthy Vijay, Odissi exponent Bichitrananda Swain, Sattriya artist Prema Ozah Borbayan and Mohiniattam exponent Sreedevi Rajan.
Theatre honours for 2024 include recognition for directors Satish Dave, T S Nagabharana, Ravi Chaturvedi and Om Katare, as well as actors Gummadi Gopala Krishna Rao, Vagai Chanderasekar and Arun Nalavde.
The 2024 awards also recognise artists working in folk and tribal traditions, including Dursheti Ramaiah for folk music of Telangana, K Murugan for folk dance of Puducherry, Atamjeet Singh for Nautanki of Uttar Pradesh, Gulabi Sapera for Kalbeliya dance of Rajasthan and Lourembam Bedabati for folk music of Manipur.
For 2025, the music awardees include Dhrupad vocalist Krishna Mohan Pathak, Hindustani vocalist Suresh Gandharv, shehnai player Shailesh Bhagwat, Rudra Veena artist Jyoti Ganpati Hegde, Carnatic vocalists Pantula Rama and Papanasam Ashok Ramani, and mridangam exponent Anoor R. Anantha Krishna Sharma.
The 2025 dance honours include Bharatanatyam artist Roja Kannan, Kathak artists Krishna Mohan Mishra Maharaj, Vaswati Misra and Ram Mohan Maharaj, Kathakali exponent Kalamandalam Krishnakumar, Manipuri artist Irengbam Nalini Devi, Sattriya artist Mallika Kandali and Mohiniattam exponent Girija Chandran.
Theatre awardees for 2025 include directors Kapildev Chandrakant Shukla, Kallol Bhattacharyya, Navdeep Kaur, Pramod Dnyandeo Pawar and Subodh Patnaik, along with actors Chetana Das, Suresh Kumar Hazzu and Makhan Lal Saraf.
The 2025 awards also honour folk and tribal artists from across the country, including folk musicians and dancers from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.
The Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards have been conferred since 1952 and are regarded among the country’s highest recognitions for performing arts. The Akademi Fellowship carries a cash award of ₹3 lakh, while the Akademi Award carries ₹1 lakh, besides a Tamrapatra and Angavastram.
Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of State for Culture Rao Inderjit Singh, Culture Secretary Vivek Aggarwal and Sangeet Natak Akademi Chairman Dr Sandhya Purecha will also attend the ceremony.
The selection of artists across classical, folk, traditional and contemporary performing arts highlights India’s diverse cultural heritage and recognises the sustained efforts of artists who have contributed to preserving and enriching the country’s artistic traditions.
