GUWAHATI, March 14 - The prestigious Ramanath Bhattacharya Foundation Literary Awards for 2016 in memory of Padmanath Vidyabinod and Ramnath Biswas will be given to Assamese poet Sananta Tanty and Bengali poet Udayan Ghosh of Kolkata respectively. Each of the awards carries a cash prize of Rs 51,000, a citation, a memento and a specially designed scarf on muga.
General secretary of the foundation, Shyamashis Bhattacharya, who is a Mumbai-based Hindi TVserial producer, said the awards would be presented to Tanty and Ghosh at a function to be held at 5 pm on March 18 at Sudmersen Hall, Cotton College, where the Pandit Padmanath Vidyabinod Memorial Lecture and the Bhuparjatak (globetrotter) Ramnath Biswas Memorial Lecture will also be delivered by eminent Assamese intellectual and writer Nagen Saikia and Tarun Mukhopadhyay of Kolkata respectively. A souvenir, to be published on the occasion, will be released by renowned writer Nirupama Borgohain, he added.
He said the decision of the foundation to award literary prizes to an Assamese and a Bengali poet in memory of the foundation�s trustee-president, Ramanath Bhattacharya, an established poet, was announced seven years ago, and the awards for the year 2010 were presented to Assamese poet Ajit Barua and Bengali poet Bijit Kumar Bhattacharya on March 13, 2011. The awards for 2011 were presented to Assamese poet Hiren Bhattacharya and Bengali poet Pabitra Mukhopadhyay on March 25, 2012. The awards for 2012 were presented to Assamese poet Nilamoni Phukan and Bengali poet Tamil Sanyal on March 17, 2013. The awards for 2013 were presented to Assamese poet Hirendra Nath Dutta and Bengali poet Swapan Sengupta on March 9, 2014. The awards for 2014 were presented to Assamese poet Bhaben Barua and Bengali poet Shyamalkanti Das in 2015. The awards for 2015 were presented to Assamese poet Harekrishna Deka and Bengali poet Ratneshwar Hajra in 2016.
