Southern States - Karnataka   

Govt. to institute Kuvempu award

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE NOV. 12. The Karnataka Government has decided to institute Kuvempu award to mark the birth centenary celebrations of Kuvempu, winner of the Jnanpith award.

Speaking to The Hindu after a high-power committee meeting chaired by the Minister of State for Kannada and Culture, Rani Satish, the Director, Kannada and Culture, Y.K. Muddukrishna, said the national-level award, to be given to a noted literary figure, would comprise a purse of Rs. 5 lakhs.

The birth centenary celebrations will be inaugurated on December 29. Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, popularly known as Kuvempu, was born on December 29, 1904 at Hirekodige and brought up at Kuppali village in Shimoga district. He died in 1994.

Mr. Muddukrishna said celebrations had been planned at the State and district levels till December 2004.

The centenary year will be celebrated as "Vishwamanava" year. Seminars, workshops and competitions on Kuvempu's works would be conducted at the university level.

The Kannada and Culture Department would bring out publications on Kuvempu's novels, plays and poems. Kuvempu's works include Sri Ramayana Darshanam and Kanooru Heggaditi.

A stamp on Kuvempu would be brought out during the centenary year, he said.

Kuvempu's famous song Jai Bharata Jananiya Tanujathe Jayahe Karnataka Mathe... would be declared the Nada Geethe and it would be sung in all educational institutions and during Government programmes as the invocation, Mr. Muddukrishna said.

Kuvempu, a doyen of Kannada literature, had won several awards, including the Jnanpith Award in 1969, the Padma Bhushan, the Padma Vibhushan, the Central Sahitya Academy Award and the Pampa Award.

The former Chief Minister, M. Veerappa Moily, Jaware Gowda, G.S. Shivarudrappa, Girish Karnad, Nisar Ahmed, Kale Gowda Nagawara, Prabhu Shanker, all writers, Y.K. Ramaiah, MLA, and Justice N.D. Venkatesh, attended the meeting.

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