Anamika receives Sahitya Akademy Award, an honour for any Hindi poetess after 66 years

New Delhi: Noted Hindi poetess Anamika, senior Congress leader and former Union Minister M Veerappa Moily, and English poet Anurdhati Subramaniam were presented the Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 2020 here on Saturday.

Anamika, a professor of English in Delhi University, is the first Hindi poetess to receive the Akademy award after 66 years. The awards were presented by Sahitya Akademi President Chand Shekhar Kam Damat physically at a function held after a gap of almost two years due to the Corona pandemic.

On this occasion, former President of Akademi and Fellow of Sahitya Akademi Vishwanath Tiwari and Vice President of Akademi Madhav Kaushik were present as chief guests.

Two writers received this award posthumously at the ceremony. These include Hriday Kaal Bharti of Kashmiri and Dharanidhar Ovari of Bodo.

Besides, Kamalakant Jhan (Maithli), Hussain-ul-Haq(Urdu), Apoorva Kumar Shakya(Assamese), Shankar(DShankar), Harish Meenshru(Gujarati), RS Bhaskar(R S B haskar), Malayalam, Omachari N. N. Pillai( Malayalam), Manipuri, E. Deven Singh,( Manipuri), Sankardev Dhakal(Nepali), Gurdev Singh Rupana(Punjabi), Bhanwar Singh Samour(Rajasthani) and Mahesh Chandra Sharma Gautam(Sanskrit), Roopchand Hansda(Santhali), Jetho Lalvani(Sindhi) , Ima Yama(Tamil) and Nikhileshwar (Telugu) were also given the award.

Each writer was given a cheque of Rs 100000, a citation, and an insignia.

The highlight of this year’s Akademy awards was the slection of Anamika as the first woman to get the honour for Hindi poetry. Born in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Anamika has been teaching English at the capital’s Satyavati College after her masters from Delhi University.

—-INDIA NEWS STREAM