Six receive Kalashree awards

BY A STAFF REPORTER,Kathmandu. Feb. 3: Veteran short story writer Bhagirathi Shrestha has been honoured with National Kalashree Award-2080 for her outstanding contribution to Nepali short stories. The award carries a purse of Rs. 100,000.

Five other personalities in the art and literature field were also honoured with different awards at a function organised by the Nepali Art And Literature Dot Com Foundation in the capital on Thursday.  

Poet Krisu Chhetri, artist Samjhana Rajbhandari, literary journalist and editor-in-chief of literary online Sahityapost Ashwini Koirala and promising musician Santosh Shrestha were honoured with Sasiddhi Rastriya Kala Shree Youth Award, Rastriya Kala Shree Fine Art Award, Badri Rastriya Kala Shree Journalism Award and Padmanetra Rastriya Kala Shree Music Award respectively. 

It was mentioned that they were honoured for their significant contribution to their respective field. Chhetri and Rajbhandari received a purse of Rs. Rs. 75,000 and Rs. 60,000 respectively while Koirala and Shrestha got Rs. 50,000 each.

The awards are presented annually by the Nepali Art And Literature Dot Com Foundation.

Likewise, Rastriya Kala Shree Felicitation was conferred on senior film director, lyricist and satirist Yadav Kharel in hounour of his outstanding contribution to the field of film and literature. However he was not present at the function due to his illness. It was informed that the honour would be presented to him when he would get well. The foundation wished him speedy recovery at the function. Prior to this, this felicitation was conferred on Jagadish Ghimire, Madan Mani Dixit, Satya Mohan Joshi, Shashi Shah, Phatte Man Rajbhandari, Manuj Babu Mishra, Tulsi Diwas, Durga Baral, Durgalal Shrestha, Dr. Basudev Tripathy, Bairagi Kaila, Prem Dhwoj Pradhan, Raamesh, Parashu Pradhan and Kiran Manandhar.

Senior artist and former chancellor of Nepal Fine Art Academy Kiran Manandhar handed over the awards. 

Applauding the organisers' efforts, Manandhar stressed the need for cooperation between artists and authors. He encouraged the organisers to come up with spectacular programmes that bring artists and authors to the same stage.

Young critic Mahesh Paudyal highlighted the personalities, contributions and background of all the honoured persons while chief patron of the Foundation Dr. Bimal Koirala and vice-chairman Rajeshwore Karki spoke about the activities of the Foundation.

Chairperson of the Foundation Momila Joshi, who is also a popular poet, essayist as well as active literary activist, said that the goal of the Foundation was only to honour the right persons and recognise their contributions.