Bendre award for two writers

For the first time since its formation, the Ambikatanayadatta Award, being presented by the Dr D R Bendre National Memorial Trust, would be shared by two writers this year.

Trust Chairperson Shamsunder Bidarkundi said on Wednesday that the Trust had decided to confer the award on eminent writer K S Narayanacharya and linguist B B Rajpurohit.

The award would be presented in Dharwad on January 31, which happens to be Bendre’s 117th birth anniversary. Noted writer Guruling Kapse will confer the award. Bidarkundi said Narayanach- arya had been selected for his scholarly works in Kannada titled ‘Bendre Kavyadalli Adhyatmanele Mattu Arshadrishti’ and ‘Bendre Kanda Kavya Vimarsha Sutragalu’.

Similarly, Rajpurohit achieved great strides in linguistics. He had served as the Deputy Director of the Central Institute of Indian Languages.

At present, he is a visiting professor at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan, and International School of Dravidian Linguistics, Trivandrum.

Apart from publishing scholarly works on language and grammar, he had produced books on grammar in Bendre’s poetry and dictionary of unique words in Bendre’s works, he said. “As two persons have been selected for the award, the Rs one-lakh award money would be shared among them,” he said.