Literature Awards and Honours

Sahitya Academy:-

• Sahitya Academy has beenset up for thedevelopment of Indian literature and to set high literary standards to foster and Co-ordinate literary activities in all the Indian languages and to promote through them cultural unity of the country.
• It is established by the Govt. of India in 1954 at New Delhi.

Functions and Powers:-

• Sahitya Academy is an autonomous baby under the Ministry of Culture.
• The Academy has recognized 24 Indian languages it has an advisory Board for each of the languages that suggests various programs and publications in the concerned languages.
• Sahitya Academy is the central institution in India for

1.  Literary dialogue, publication and promotion in the country.

2.  Promoting Indian literature throughout the world.

3.  Keeping alive the intimate dialogue among the various linguistic and literary zones and groups through seminars, lectures, symposia discussion, readings and performances.

4.  Providing research and travel grants to authors.

5.  Publishes books and journals including the Encyclopedia of Indian Literature.

     Other than its headquarters at New Delhi the Academy has four regional offices in Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai.

• It has two translation centers at Bangalore and Kolkata besides a project.
• Office at Shillong for promotion of Oral and Tribal literature and an archive of Indian literature in Delhi.
• Sahitya Akademi publishes three literary journals –
  • Indian Literature (Bi-monthly in English)
  • SamkaleenBharatiya (Bi-monthly in Hindi)
  • SamskruitaPratibha (Half-yearly in Sanskrit)

• The Academy holds an annual week-long festival of Letters usually in February with award giving ceremony, Samarathsar lecture and a national seminar.

1. Sahitya Academy Fellowship:-

• It is the highest honor conferred by the Academy on a writer by electing him as its follow. This honor is reserved for the immortals of literature and limited to twenty-one only at any given time.
• It was established in 1968 and the first elected fellow was Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.
• The fellowship will be awarded for literary work in any of the 24 recognized languages.

Prize for Translation:-

• Besides the Sahitya Academy awards for creative writing, it has instituted an annual prize for translations from 1989 to be given to outstanding translations in the 24 languages recognized by it.
• The award carries a prize money of Rs. 50,000.

2. Bal Sahitya Puraskar:-

• It is award given by the sahitya academy every year for the must outstanding children’s book by an Indian author, first published in any one 24 recognized languages during last five years.

3. YuvaPuraskar :-

• It is an award given by the sahitya academy every year for book by a young Indian author, Whose age is 35 or below, first published in any of the 24 languages.

1. The SaraswatiSamman: -

• It is an annual award for outstanding in prose on poetry literary works in any 22 Indian languages listed in schedule VIII of the Constitution of India.
• It is named after an Indian goddess of learning and considered to be among the highest literary awards in India.
• It was instituted in 1991 by the K.K. Birla Foundation.
•  It consists of Rs. 15lakh, a citation and plaque.
• The inaugural award was given to HarivanshraiBachan for his work i.e 4 Vol. Auto Biography “Kya Bhooloon Kya YaadKaroon”, “Needa Ka NirmanPhir”, “Basere se Door and Dashdwar se Sopan Tok”.

2. VyasSamman:-

• It is a literary award for Hindi writers in India.
• It was awarded annually by K.K. Birla Foundation and first awarded in the year 1991.
• It includes a cash payout of Rs. 250,000.
• The inaugural award was given to “Dr. Ram Vilas Sharma” for “Bharat KePracheen Bhasha Parivar”.
• 2^nd: Dr. Shiv Prasad Singh, for “Neela Chand” (Novel).

3. Bhartiya BhashParishad:-

• It was instituted in 1975,Kolkata by Sitaram Seksaria and Bhagirath Kanodia.
• It was awarded in the field of Hindi Literature.

4. VachaspatiPuraskar:-

• It was founded in 1991 by K.K. Birla Foundation for Promotion of Sanskrit literature (as well as education and social work – main aim of K.K. Birla Foundation)
• The first recipient of this award was.

5. JnanpithAwards:-

• It is an Indian literary award presented annually by the “BharatiyaJnanpith” to an author for their outstanding contribution towards literature.
• It was instituted in 1961 and the award is bestowed only on Indian Writers writing in Indian languages including in the Eighth Schedule to the constitution of India and English with no posthumous conferral.
• It consists of a bronze replica of Saraswathi the Hindu Goddess of Knowledge and wisdom.
• The first recipient of the award was the Malayalam writer GSankaraKurup who received the award in 1965 for his collection of poems Odakkuzhal(The Bamboo Flute) published in 1950.
• The BharatyaJnanptih, a research and cultural institute founded in 1944 by industrialist SahuShanty Prasad Jain of the SahuJain family conceived an idea in May 1961 to start a Scheme, “Commanding National Prestige and of International standard to select the best book out of the publications in Indian languages”.

6. Sahitya Academy Award:-

• The Sahitya Academy award is a literary honor in India, which annually confers on writer of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the major Indian languages recognized by the Sahitya Academy New Delhi.
• It was established in 1954the award comprises a plaqueand cash prize 1 lakh.
• The first recipient of this award was Namwar Singh in 1971.
• The First Woman recipient of this award isAmrita Pritam, 1956

7. Bhasha Samman:-

• This award presented annually by the Sahitya Academy for outstanding translations in 24 languages.
• It was established in 1996 to be given to writers, scholars, editions, collections, performers or translators who have made considerable contribution to the propagation modernization or enrichment of the languages concerned.
• The Samman carries a copper plaque along with an amount equal to its awards for creative literature, i.e. 1,00,000.
• The Samman are given to 3-4 persons every year in different languages on the basis of recommendation of expert’s committers constituted for this purpose.
• The 1^st Bhasha Samman were awarded to –

1. Sri Dharikshan Mishra for Bhojpuri
2. Sri Bansi Ram Sharma and Sir M.R. Thakur for Pahari (Himachali)
3. Sir K. Jathappa Rai and Sri Mandara Keshava Bhat
4. Sri Chandrakanta Mura Singh

4. Anand CumarswamyFellowship :-

• It was established in 1996 in the name of Indian writer Ananda Coomarswamy. It is given to scholars from Asian countries to pursue a literary project in India.

5. PremchandFellowships:-

• It was started in 2005. It is named after the Hindi writer Premchand during his 125^th birth anniversary.
• It is given to scholars doing research on Indian literature or to creative writers from SAARC countries other than India.

5. MoortideviAward:-

• This is an annual literary award in India Presented by BharatiyaJnanpith organization for a work which Indian philosophy and culture.

7.  Iqbal Award:-

• This was established in the year 1986-87 by the Govt. of Madhya Pradesh to honor creative writings in Urdu literature. This award carrier Rs. 1,00,000 along a citation.
• It was established in the year 1983 and the 1^st recipient of this award was K. Nagarajaya Rao a Kannada Writer for his work “PattamahadeShantala Devi”.