JNANPITH AWARD

JNANPITH AWARD

Jnanpith Award is being given for the best creative literary writing by any Indian citizen in any of the languages included in the VIII Schedule of the Indian Constitution. The Award is the brain-child of late Smt. Rama Jain, the first President and the moving spirit behind the Bharatiya Jnanpith since its inception. It has become the most prestigious literary award of the country. The name of the award is taken from Sanskrit words jnāna and pīṭha (knowledge-seat). This award carries a cheque for Rs.11 lakh, a citation plaque and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the Indian goddess of knowledge, music and the arts. The award was instituted in 1961.

Award Information

Category                       Literature (Individual)

Description                   Literary award in India

Instituted                       1961

First awarded                1965

Awarded by                  Bharatiya Jnanpith

Cash award                   Rs. 11 Lakh

First awardees               G. Sankara Kurup

Jnanpith Award Winners (1981-2012)

        Year                     Awardees                                                         Language

        1981                     Amrita Pritam                                                    Punjabi

        1982                     Mahadevi Varma                                                Hindi

        1983                     Maasti Venkatesh Ayengar                                 Kannada

        1984                     Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai                                Malayalam

        1985                     Pannalal Patel                                                   Gujarati

        1986                     Sachidananda Rout Roy                                     Oriya

        1987                     Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (Kusumagraj)              Marathi

        1988                     Dr.C. Narayana Reddy                                        Telugu

        1989                     Qurratulain Hyder                                               Urdu

        1990                     V. K. Gokak (Vinayaka Krishna Gokak)               Kannada

        1991                     Subhas Mukhopadhyay                                      Bengali

        1992                     Naresh Mehta                                                    Hindi

        1993                     Sitakant Mahapatra                                            Oriya

        1994                     U.R. Ananthamurthy                                           Kannada

        1995                     M. T. Vasudevan Nair                                        Malayalam

        1996                     Mahasweta Devi                                                Bengali

        1997                     Ali Sardar Jafri                                                   Urdu

        1998                     Girish Karnad                                                    Kannada

        1999                     Nirmal Verma                                                    Hindi

        1999                     Gurdial Singh                                                     Punjabi

        2000                     Indira Goswami                                                  Assamese

        2001                     Rajendra Keshavlal Shah                                    Gujarati

        2002                     D. Jayakanthan                                                 Tamil

        2003                     Vinda Karandikar                                               Marathi

        2004                     Rahman Rahi                                                     Kashmiri

        2005                     Kunwar Narayan                                                Hindi

        2006                     Ravindra Kelekar                                               Konkani

        2006                     Satya Vrat Shastri                                             Sanskrit

        2007                     O. N. V. Kurup                                                   Malayalam

        2008                     Akhlaq Mohammed Khan ‘Shahryar’                    Urdu

        2009                     Amar Kant                                                         Hindi

        2009                     Shrilal Shukla                                                    Hindi

        2010                     Chandrashekhara Kambara                                 Kannada

        2011                     Pratibha Ray                                                     Oriya - Announced in 2012

The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee conferred the 47th Jnanpith Award for the year 2011 to Oriya Novelist, Pratibha Ray on 22 May 2013 at Balyogi Auditorium in New Delhi.

        2012                     Ravuri Bharadwaja                                             Telugu

The 48th Jnanpith award for the year 2012 was announced on 17 April 2013 and was conferred to Telugu novelist, short-story writer and poet Ravuri Bharadhwaja for his overall contribution to Telugu literature.