AGARTALA, August 23 (TIWN): Governor PB Acharya today gave away the 7th Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Utsav Puraskar to thirty two youngsters for musical acumen on a number of musical instruments at Rabindra Shatabarshiki Bhawan in Agartala. The governor said that art served as an essential bridge across language and cultural differences in a diverse society like India. “Ustad Bismillah Khan Puraskar Utsav proves and gives a real exposure to our national theme of unity in diversity”, the Governor stated.

He added that new and emerging artists would be exposed through the Utsav in the years ahead. The Sangeet Natak Akademi organized the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Utsav Puraskar for the second time in NE India in Tripura this year. The Akademi held the award ceremony previously at Guwahati. The Akademi has been instituting Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar from 2006 onwards to artists who demonstrated conspicuous talent in the field of music, dance and drama.

The award this year went to Bhuvanesh Komkali and Kumar Somanath Mardur for Hindustani vocal music, Savani Talwalkar for Hindustani instrumental music, Gayathri Garish for Carnatic vocal music, N Guruprasad, Anirudh Athreya and BC Manjunath for Carnatic Instrumental music, Uma Sathyanarayanan for Bharatanatyam, Anuj Mishra for Kathak, Kalamandalam Harinarayan A for Kathakali, Sinam Basu Singh for Manipuri, Vedantam Satya Narasimha Sastry for Kuchipuri dance.

Yudishthir Nayak was awarded for his performance in Odissi dance, Bhabananda Barbayan for Sattriya, Preethi Balachandran Athreya for contemporary dance, Nalini Nihar Nayak for his contribution to direction of famous plays like ‘Swarna Varna’, Ashish Nijhawan for direction including ‘Frozen Turbulence’, Aditee Biswas for direction, Jasvir Kumar and Happy Ranajit for acting.

The Ustad Bismillah Khan Puraskar Utsav went to Sandhya Gangadhar Salve and Nalini R Joshi for allied theatre arts on consume design, Gyandev Singh for his contribution in allied theatre arts in lighting design, Lakhwinder Wadali for Punjabi folk music, Firoze Khan Manganiar for Rajasthani folk music, Nandesh Vitthal Umap for his contribution in Marathi folk music.

Ganesh Sampatrao CHandanshive was awarded for his performance and contribution to Tamasha, Padmini Dora for her contribution to Odissi folk music and Vishaka Hari for her contribution to Tamil traditional music. Bikrama Khakhlari was awarded for Bodo dance and Moumita Adak was awarded for her contribution to traditional Indian puppetry.