Rajyotsava Award only for 50 people: Rani Satish

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, OCT. 16. The number of persons to be conferred with the annual Rajyotsava Award this year will be restricted to 50, according to the Minister of State for Kannada and Culture, Ms. Rani Satish.

She told presspersons here today that the committee set up to select deserving persons for the prestigious award, would give priority to ``merit and significant contribution'' made by the contenders in their fields of work. Stating that the Government was forced to rely on applications received from the public for selecting the awardees, she said that applications alone were not the yardstick.

Asked about the relevance of conferring the award in the wake of the austere measures initiated by the Government due to drought situation in the State, Ms. Satish said the ``tradition of conferring the award should not be given up.''

When her attention was drawn to the comments that conferring awards at this juncture would pose a moral question to the Government in the wake of its own decision to cancel the International Film Festival, cultural festivals such as Hampi Utsav, and a decision to observe Dasara as a low key affair, she and her officials defended the Government's decision to go ahead with the presentation of the award.

Preparations were underway for observing the centenary celebrations of renowned Kannada writer the late Shivarama Karanth. Release of the first seven volumes of the planned 35 volumes of complete works of Karanth and the inauguration of Karanth Foundation would be the highlights of the celebrations, she said.

Besides, the Directorate of Kannada and Culture was all set to release another two volumes (volume number 13 and 14) of the 15 volumes of the complete works of Ambedkar shortly. The Directorate, along with the Kannada Book Authority, would bring out the second edition of ``Vachana Sahitya Samputa.''

The Mysore-based Rangayana would hold a one-week festival of plays from November 18 in Mysore. The Union Minister of State for Culture, Ms. Menaka Gandhi, was scheduled to inaugurate it. She would felicitate senior women directors of Kannada theatre. The Chief Minister, Mr. S.M Krishna, would inaugurate the new mini theatre, Bhoomi Gita, constructed on the Rangayana premises on the occasion, she said.

The Government would observe Kittur Rani Chennamma Victory Day on October 24 in Bangalore and elsewhere. The Victory Day would be marked by a number of cultural fetes by students in the age group of 15 to 20, she added.

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Section  : Southern States
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