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