Shyamhari Chakra
Five distinguished artists of Odisha were announced as the winners of the prestigious Dharmapada Award, State’s highest honour in the field of art, for five consecutive years – from 2016 to 2020 – on Friday.
The annual awards are being presented by Odisha Lalit Kala Akademi, the apex body of the state for art under Government’s Department of Language, Literature and Culture.
Besides the top five honours, 25 senior artists of the state would be specially felicitated by the Akademi – five each for the aforesaid years – from various branches of art for their noteworthy achievements.
Culture Minister Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi announced the awards at the Sanskruti Bhawan in the capital, the government complex that housed all the apex bodies of culture.
The recipients of the Dharmapada Award are painter Banabihari Parida for 2016, sculptor Shyam Sundar Patnaik for 2017, painter Jagadish Chandra Kanungo for 2018, pattachitra artist Binod Maharana for 2019 and painter Mahendra Prasad Mohapatra for 2020.
The top award carries a cash prize of Rupees five lakh, a citation and shawl.
Each of the 25 artists would be felicitated with a cash award of Rupees one lakh and a citation.
The artists to be felicitated are Chandra Kumar Samantaray, Sarat Chandra Mohanty, Basanta Kumari Samanta, Banchhanidhi Patnaik and Jogesh Prasad Dani for the year 2016.
For the year 2017, the artists include Radhashyam Bisoi, Debendra Das, Banamali Mohapatra, Lalat Mohan Patnaik and Alekh Charan Sahoo.
Sridhar Moharana, Gokulananda Das, Tunendra Patnaik, Kalpataru Moharana and Ashok Kumar Mohanty would be the recipients of the felicitation for 2018.
Similarly, Srinibas Padhiary, Laxmidhar Rana, Braja Kishore Jena, Prasant Kumar Das and Gouranga Bariki have been chosen for 2019 while Rabi Narayan Rath, Bijay Kumar Parida, Pravakar Moharana, Dinabandhu Mohapatra and Brundaban Moharana have been the artists for 2020.
The unprecedented and inordinate delay in announcement of these annual awards were due to the controversies over the selection of the Dharmapada Awards leading to legal complications.
