New Delhi- President Droupadi Murmu conferred the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships (Akademi Ratna) and Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the years 2024 and 2025 at a special ceremony, honouring eminent personalities for their outstanding contributions to India’s performing arts.
The honours recognised artists from diverse fields including music, dance, theatre, traditional and folk arts, tribal arts, puppetry and allied performing arts. The Sangeet Natak Akademi had selected seven eminent personalities as Akademi Fellows and 108 artists for the Akademi Awards for 2024 and 2025. The Fellowship is one of the Akademi’s rarest honours and is restricted to 40 Fellows at any given time.
Addressing the gathering, President Murmu said artists are important carriers of India’s rich cultural traditions and custodians of the country’s collective memory. She emphasised that India’s diverse artistic traditions, expressed through different forms of music, dance, theatre and folk arts, have evolved over generations and continue to enrich the nation’s cultural identity.
The President also stressed the need to preserve India’s traditional art forms and create greater opportunities for artists so that the country’s rich cultural heritage can be passed on to future generations.
The ceremony brought special recognition to artists from Odisha. Odissi exponent Bichitrananda Swain, Sambalpuri folk-dance exponent Ranjit Kumar Nag and theatre director Subodh Patnaik were among the Odisha artistes selected for the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards. Other Odisha awardees in the 2024–25 honours include Guru Sachchidananda Das, Guru Ileana Citaristi and Guru Pagulu Jena.
The Akademi Award carries a purse of ₹1 lakh, besides a Tamrapatra and Angavastram, while the Fellowship carries ₹3 lakh along with the traditional honours. The awards recognise sustained excellence and significant contributions to Indian performing arts.
