President Droupadi Murmu will confer the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships (Akademi Ratna) and Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for 2024 and 2025 on 115 artists at a special ceremony at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, on August 13.
The honours recognise outstanding and sustained contributions to India’s performing arts, including classical music, dance, theatre, folk and tribal traditions, puppetry and traditional theatre.
The awards bring together artists representing diverse artistic traditions and regions across India, highlighting the country’s rich and varied cultural heritage.
Seven eminent artists have been selected for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, also known as Akademi Ratna.
The fellowship recipients are:
- Ramlal Bareth
- A V Anand
- Rita Ganguly
- Puru Dadheech
- Chittaranjan Jyotishi
- Pasumarthi Rattaiah Sarma
- Sudharani Raghupathy
The fellowship is among the country’s highest recognitions for sustained contribution to performing arts.
The 2024 Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards recognise performers across several classical and traditional music forms.
Among the music awardees are Arun Nagesh Kashalkar, a Hindustani vocalist; Nirmalya Dey, a Dhrupad exponent; Bharat Bhushan Goswami, a sarangi player; and Sanjay Mukherjee, a tabla player.
The list also includes Krishna Vageesh, a Carnatic vocalist, and flautist Rakesh Chaurasia.
2024 Dance Awardees
The 2024 dance honours include artists representing several major Indian classical traditions.
They include:
- Rajeswari Sainath — Bharatanatyam
- Bipul Chandra Das — Kathak
- Rajkumari Thambalsana Devi — Manipuri
- Veena Murthy Vijay — Kuchipudi
- Bichitrananda Swain — Odissi
- Prema Ozah Borbayan — Sattriya
- Sreedevi Rajan — Mohiniattam
The 2024 awards recognise theatre directors including Satish Dave, T S Nagabharana, Ravi Chaturvedi and Om Katare.
Actors honoured include Gummadi Gopala Krishna Rao, Vagai Chanderasekar and Arun Nalavde.
The awards also extend to folk and tribal traditions.
Among the 2024 recipients are Dursheti Ramaiah for folk music of Telangana, K Murugan for folk dance of Puducherry, Atamjeet Singh for Nautanki of Uttar Pradesh, Gulabi Sapera for Kalbeliya dance of Rajasthan and Lourembam Bedabati for folk music of Manipur.
The 2025 awardees similarly represent a broad range of Indian performing arts.
Music
The music category includes:
- Krishna Mohan Pathak — Dhrupad
- Suresh Gandharv — Hindustani vocal
- Shailesh Bhagwat — shehnai
- Jyoti Ganpati Hegde — Rudra Veena
- Pantula Rama — Carnatic vocal
- Papanasam Ashok Ramani — Carnatic vocal
- Anoor R. Anantha Krishna Sharma — mridangam
Dance
The 2025 dance awardees include Roja Kannan in Bharatanatyam; Krishna Mohan Mishra Maharaj, Vaswati Misra and Ram Mohan Maharaj in Kathak; and Kalamandalam Krishnakumar in Kathakali.
Other recognised artists include Irengbam Nalini Devi in Manipuri, Mallika Kandali in Sattriya and Girija Chandran in Mohiniattam.
Theatre
Theatre honours for 2025 include directors Kapildev Chandrakant Shukla, Kallol Bhattacharyya, Navdeep Kaur, Pramod Dnyandeo Pawar and Subodh Patnaik.
Actors recognised include Chetana Das, Suresh Kumar Hazzu and Makhan Lal Saraf.
A significant feature of the awards is the recognition given to artists working in India’s folk and tribal traditions.
The 2025 honours include folk musicians and dancers from states and Union Territories including Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.
The recognition reflects the Akademi’s focus on preserving artistic traditions that are deeply connected to India’s regional cultures and communities.
The Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards have been conferred since 1952 and are regarded among India’s highest national recognitions for performing arts.
The Akademi Fellowship carries a cash award of ₹3 lakh, while the Akademi Award carries ₹1 lakh.
Recipients also receive a Tamrapatra and Angavastram.
The awards cover a wide spectrum of performing arts, allowing both established classical traditions and regional folk and traditional forms to receive national recognition.
The August 13 ceremony will also be attended by senior government officials and cultural representatives.
Those expected to be present include:
- Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat
- Minister of State for Culture Rao Inderjit Singh
- Culture Secretary Vivek Aggarwal
- Sangeet Natak Akademi Chairman Dr Sandhya Purecha
