Karnataka Rajyotsava awards announced

Chairman of National Human Rights Commission and former CJI H L Dattu, former Olympian Kenneth Powell, former Rajasthan governor Margaret Alva, National Public School (NPS) founder K P Gopalakrishna and Kannada actor Jai Jagadish are among the 63 winners of this year’s Rajyotsava awards.

The list of the award winners was released on Wednesday. The winners will be felicitated during a programme at Ravindra Kalakshetra on Thursday evening.

The Rajyotsava award, instituted in 1966, is Karnataka’s the second highest
civilian honour after the Karnataka Ratna. Recipients of the award are chosen by a government-appointed committee.

The Rajyotsava award carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, a 20 gram gold medal and a citation.

The Rajyotsava awards were slated to be presented on November 1 to mark the celebration of Karnataka’s unification. It was put off due to the model code of conduct that was in place for the by-elections to three Lok Sabha and two Assembly constituencies.

The award winners include writers M S Prabhakara (Kamarupi), Hassan Nayeem Surkod, C Sarvamangala and Chandrashekar Talya, S N Rangaswamy (Theatre), Annu Devadiga (Music), M R Krishnamurthy (Dance), Guruva Koraga (Folklore), Kenneth Powell, Vinay V S and Chetan R (Sports), Bhargava, Rajan and Datturaj (Film), Geetha Ramanujam, A V S Murthy and Shivanand Koujalagi (Education), R S Rajaram, C K Jorapura and D Surendrakumar (Other fields), G N Ranganath Rao, Basavarajaswamy and Ammembala Anand (Journalism).