President Droupadi Murmu conferred the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships (Akademi Ratna) and Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the years 2024 and 2025 on 115 eminent artists at a special investiture ceremony held at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on 13 August 2026. The ceremony recognised outstanding contributions across India’s diverse performing arts, including music, dance, theatre, folk and tribal traditions, puppetry, mask-making, and instrument-making. Seven artists were elevated to the coveted Akademi Fellowship, while 108 received the Akademi Award.
About the Sangeet Natak Akademi
The Sangeet Natak Akademi is India’s national academy for music, dance, and drama. It was established on 31 May 1952 by a resolution of the Ministry of Education (now the Ministry of Human Resource Development), Government of India, under the leadership of then Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The academy was formally inaugurated on 28 January 1953 by the first President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad, at a special function held in the Parliament House.
The Akademi is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture, with its headquarters at Rabindra Bhavan in New Delhi. It was reorganized as a society and registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 on 11 September 1961. The academy’s mandate is the preservation and promotion of India’s vast intangible heritage of performing arts, expressed through music, dance, and drama.
The General Council manages the Akademi’s affairs and comprises up to 70 members, including nominated experts, artists, and representatives from cultural institutions. The Chairman of the Akademi is appointed by the President of India for a term of five years. The current Chairman is Dr Sandhya Purecha. The Akademi also has three constituent units, including the Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy (JNMDA) in Imphal and the Kathak Kendra in Delhi.
The Akademi confers three major honours: the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (Akademi Ratna), the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar), and the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar (instituted in 2006 for artists under 40 years of age). The awards have been conferred since 1952 and are regarded as among the country’s highest national recognitions for sustained excellence in the performing arts.
Akademi Fellowship vs Akademi Award
The Sangeet Natak Akademi confers two distinct tiers of recognition. The Akademi Fellowship (Akademi Ratna) is the highest and most prestigious honour given by the academy. It is restricted to a maximum of 40 living individuals at any given time, making it an exceptionally rare distinction. Each Fellow receives a purse of ₹3 lakh, along with an Angavastram (shawl) and a Tamrapatra (citation plaque) bearing the seal of the Akademi and the signature of its Chairman.
The Akademi Award (Akademi Puraskar) is the premier national recognition for gurus, scholars, and practitioners of the performing arts. It carries a purse of ₹1 lakh, besides a Tamrapatra and an Angavastram. Unlike the Fellowship, there is no cap on the number of Akademi Awards given each year. The awards are open to all regardless of nationality, race, caste, religion, or sex, though a candidate must ordinarily be at least 35 years of age. Associations, institutions, and organisations are not eligible for either the Fellowship or the Award.
Both honours recognise sustained, lifetime contributions to the practice, teaching, and scholarship of music, dance, drama, and other performing arts. The Awards were originally instituted in 1951 as Presidential Awards, even before the Akademi was formally established, and were later incorporated into the Akademi’s conferment system.
Seven New Akademi Fellows for 2024-25
The General Council of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, which met from 22 to 26 March 2026, unanimously selected seven eminent artists as Akademi Fellows for the years 2024 and 2025. These seven artists represent a cross-section of India’s classical dance and music traditions:
| Fellow | Art Form |
|---|---|
| Ramlal Bareth | Kathak Dance |
| A V Anand | Carnatic Music |
| Rita Ganguly | Vocal and Dance |
| Puru Dadheech | Kathak Dance |
| Chittaranjan Jyotishi | Vocal Music |
| Pasumarthi Rattaiah Sarma | Kuchipudi Dance |
| Sudharani Raghupathy | Bharatanatyam Dance |
With these seven additions, the total number of living Akademi Fellows approaches the statutory cap of 40. The Fellowship is conferred on artists who have made exceptional, sustained contributions to their respective art forms over decades. Past Fellows include some of the most celebrated names in Indian performing arts history.
Akademi Awards: A Pan-Indian Celebration of Performing Arts
A total of 108 artists were selected for the Akademi Awards for 2024 and 2025, representing different States and Union Territories across India. The awards span a remarkable range of performing arts disciplines, reflecting the country’s cultural diversity.
Music
The music awardees for 2024 include Arun Nagesh Kashalkar (Hindustani Vocal), Bharat Bhushan Goswami (Sarangi), Sanjay Mukherjee (Tabla), Krishna Vageesh and N Vijay Siva (Carnatic Vocal), and Rakesh Chaurasia (Creative and Experimental Flute). The 2025 music awards honour Krishna Mohan Pathak (Dhrupad), Suresh Gandharv (Hindustani Vocal), Shailesh Bhagwat (Shehnai), Jyoti Ganpati Hegde (Rudra Veena), Pantula Rama and Papanasam Ashok Ramani (Carnatic Vocal), among others.
Dance
The dance category covers India’s major classical forms. For 2024, awardees include Rajeswari Sainath (Bharatanatyam), Bipul Chandra Das (Kathak), Rajkumari Thambalsana Devi (Manipuri), Veena Murthy Vijay (Kuchipudi), Bichitrananda Swain (Odissi), and Prema Ozah Borbayan (Sattriya). The 2025 dance awards include Roja Kannan (Bharatanatyam), a Kathak trio of Krishna Mohan Mishra Maharaj, Vaswati Misra and Ram Mohan Maharaj, Kalamandalam Krishnakumar (Kathakali), and Irengbam Nalini Devi (Manipuri).
Theatre
Theatre directions awards for 2024 went to Satish Dave, T S Nagabharana, Ravi Chaturvedi, and Om Katare, while acting honours recognised Gummadi Gopala Krishna Rao, Vagai Chanderasekar, and Arun Nalavde. The 2025 theatre awards include Kapildev Chandrakant Shukla, Kallol Bhattacharyya, and Navdeep Kaur for direction, and Chetana Das and Suresh Kumar Hazzu for acting.
Folk, Tribal and Allied Arts
A significant portion of the awards recognises India’s folk and tribal traditions, which form the living heritage of rural and indigenous communities. For 2024, awardees include Gulabi Sapera for Kalbeliya dance of Rajasthan, Atamjeet Singh for Nautanki of Uttar Pradesh, Dursheti Ramaiah for folk music of Telangana, and Lourembam Bedabati for folk music of Manipur. The 2025 folk and tribal awardees represent Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram, among others.
Overall and Other Contributions
Five artists were recognised in the 2024 “Overall and Others” category, including T S Sathyavathi (Overall Contribution in Music), Voleti Rangamani (Overall Contribution in Dance), Shubhada Manohar Varadkar (Scholarship in Performing Arts, Dance), Tapati Chowdhurie (Art Critique), and Sunanda Nair (Overseas, Dance, Mohiniattam). The 2025 “Overall and Others” category includes Shiv Narayan Jha (Kunal) for Overall Contribution in Theatre and Maneesha Sathe for Overall Contribution in Kathak, among others.
The awards for 2024 and 2025 together cover the entire gamut of India’s performing arts, from ancient classical traditions to contemporary folk and tribal forms, puppetry, mask-making, and instrument-making.
Key Takeaways
- President Droupadi Murmu conferred the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships and Awards for 2024 and 2025 on 115 artists at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, on 13 August 2026.
- The Sangeet Natak Akademi was established on 31 May 1952 and inaugurated on 28 January 1953 by President Dr Rajendra Prasad. It is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture headquartered at Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi.
- The Akademi Fellowship (Akademi Ratna) is the highest honour, restricted to a maximum of 40 living individuals at any given time, and carries a purse of ₹3 lakh.
- The Akademi Award (Akademi Puraskar) carries a purse of ₹1 lakh, a Tamrapatra, and an Angavastram. It has been conferred since 1952 and is open to all artists regardless of nationality, race, caste, religion, or sex.
- Seven artists were elected as Akademi Fellows for 2024-25: Ramlal Bareth (Kathak), A V Anand (Carnatic Music), Rita Ganguly (Vocal and Dance), Puru Dadheech (Kathak), Chittaranjan Jyotishi (Vocal), Pasumarthi Rattaiah Sarma (Kuchipudi), and Sudharani Raghupathy (Bharatanatyam).
- The current Chairman of the Sangeet Natak Akademi is Dr Sandhya Purecha, appointed by the President of India for a five-year term.
- The Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar, instituted in 2006, is given to outstanding artists under 40 years of age in music, dance, and drama.
