Sunday, February 9, 2014

Vice President Presents 26th Moorti Devi Award to Shri Haraprasad Das



The Vice President of India Shri M. Hamid Ansari presented the “26th Moorti Devi Award” to Shri Haraprasad Das,
one of the most influential contemporary poet and thinker in Odia Literature at a function organized by Bharatiya Jnanpith here today. The award consists of a Citation and a cash prize of Rs 4 Lakhs.  Addressing on the occasion, the Vice President said that Shri Haraprasad Das is amongst the most versatile literary figures in contemporary Indian literature and his versatility and prolificacy can be gauged from his creations. Every author and poet has a different state of mind while writing. He opined that Bharatiya Jnanpith and the distinguished jury, chaired by Dr. Veerappa Moily deserve full credit for an excellent choice for the Award. He congratulated Shri Haraprasad Das for this well deserved recognition and wished him all the best for the future.
Besides his literary genius, Shri Haraprasad Das has been a distinguished Civil Servant. He also served as an expert on several UN Bodies, for around 10 years. He has published until now thirteen volumes of poetry, four volumes of literary criticism and critical thought, one volume of ethnic history, one book of fiction and three works of translation.
The Moortidevi Award is an annual literary award in India presented by the Bharatiya Jnanpith organization for a work which emphasizes Indian philosophy and culture. The prize includes an amount of Rupees four Lakh, a plaque, a statue of Saraswati, and a shawl.
1983  C.K.Nagaraja Rao -Kannada
1984  Virendra Kumar Jain     -Hindi
1985  Manu Bhai Pancholi ‘Darshak'         -Gujarati
1986  Kanhyaiya Lal Sethia     -Rajasthani
1988  Vishnu Prabhakar          -Hindi
1989  Vidya Niwas Mishra       -Hindi
1990  Munishree Nagraj -Hindi
1991  Pratibha Rai         -Oriya
1992  Kubernath Ray     -Hindi
1993  Shyamacharan Dubey   -Hindi
1994  Shivaji Sawant     -Marathi
1995  Nirmal Verma       -Hindi
2000  Govind Chandra Pande  -Hindi
2001  Rammurti Tripathi         -Hindi
2002  Yashdev Shalya    -Hindi
2003  Kalyan Mal Lodha          -Hindi
2004  Narayan Desai      -Gujarati
2005  Rammurti Sharma         -Hindi
2006  Krishna Bihari Mishra   -Hindi
2007  M. Veerappa Moily         -Kannada
2008  Raghuvansh         -Hindi
2009  Akkitham    -Malayalam
2010  Gopi Chand Narang       -Urdu
2011  Gulab Kothari      -Hindi
2012  Haraprasad Das    -Oriya