NEW DELHI: The Delhi government’s Hindi Academy has renamed several of its literary awards after prominent leaders, including V D Savarkar, Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Madan Mohan Malaviya.
The Hindi Academy Shalaka Samman has been renamed the Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Shalaka Samman, with the award now carrying a cash prize of Rs 7 lakh, up from Rs 5 lakh earlier.
The academy has also instituted a new award to promote Indian culture and knowledge traditions, named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Another award has been introduced in the name of late BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra to honour contributions to the service of Hindi.
The Hindi Academy has invited applications for awards for the academic years 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26. Eligible litterateurs, poets and journalists from Delhi-NCR can submit their entries by June 23, officials said.
Under the Sahityakar Samman Yojana, 16 awards will be presented to Hindi litterateurs, poets and journalists.
The Atal Bihari Vajpayee Bharatiya Sanskriti and Gyan Parampara Samman carries a cash prize of rS 5 lakh. The Rani Ahilyabai Holkar Samman for women litterateurs, the Sant Ravidas Sahitya Samman and the Veer Savarkar Samman for national consciousness carry cash prizes of `2 lakh each.
The women litterateurs’ award, which has been renamed after Rani Ahilyabai Holkar, was earlier named after Santosh Koli, an anti-corruption activist who died in a road accident. The AAP government had named the award in her memory.
Rs 1 Lakh prizes named after literary figures, social reformers
Awards carrying a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh each include the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hindi Sahityakar Samman, Baba Jorawar Singh Samman for children’s literature, Swami Vivekanand Yuva Pratibha Samman, Vidya Niwas Mishra Samman for Hindi journalism and the Dr Vijay Kumar Malhotra Hindi Sevi Samman for promotion of the Hindi language.
Other awards include the Nirmal Verma Samman for Hindi translation, Ramchandra Shukla Hindi Utkarsh Samman, Vasudev Sharan Agrawal Samman for folk writing,
Devendra Swaroop Samman for writings in science, economics, political science, history, sociology and other subjects, Mridula Sinha Samman for women litterateurs, and Narendra Kohli Samman for writings across various literary forms. Details of all award categories have been uploaded on the academy’s website.
This story has been written by Anup Verma of The New Indian Express.