For the India’s performing arts in 2026, Honorable President of India is set to confer the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships and Awards for the years 2024 and 2025 on August 13, 2026. A total of 115 artists have been selected for this prestigious recognition which includes areas such as music, dance, theatre, folk and tribal arts, puppetry, instrumental making and other performing arts.
The awards are specially important as they showcase the India’s cultural institutes, performing arts and national recognitions.
Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2024-25
The special award ceremony is set to take place on August 13th, 2026 at 11:30 AM at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi where the awards will be conferred by the President of India on the selected artists.
Union Ministers of Culture and Tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of State for Culture Rao Inderjit Singh, Secretary of Ministry of Culture Vivek Aggarwal and Chairman of Sangeet Natak Akademi Dr Sandhya Purecha are some of the dignitaries attending the ceremony.
115 awardees and fellows from various states and union territories have been chosen from India’s varied performing arts.
What is the Sangeet Natak Akademi?
Sangeet Natak Akademi is India’s national institution of music, dance and drama. The awards are awarded for exceptional and distinguished work done in the field of performing arts.
The Sangeet Natak Akademi awards have been conferred from 1952 onwards. The Sangeet Natak Akademi awards include both classical music and dance along with theatre, folk and tribal traditions and other associated performing arts.
The highest award from the Sangeet Natak Akademi is called Akademi Fellowship or Akademi Ratna. A Fellow is given ₹3 lakh whereas an Akademi Award includes a prize money of ₹1 lakh and a Tamrapatra & Angavastram.
Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellows — Akademi Ratna
| S. No. | Fellow |
| 1 | Ramlal Bareth |
| 2 | A V Anand |
| 3 | Rita Ganguly |
| 4 | Puru Dadheech |
| 5 | Chittaranjan Jyotishi |
| 6 | Pasumarthi Rattaiah Sarma |
| 7 | Sudharani Raghupathy |
Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2024
Music
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | Arun Nagesh Kashalkar | Hindustani Vocal |
| 2 | Nirmalya Dey | Hindustani Vocal – Dhrupad |
| 3 | Bharat Bhushan Goswami | Hindustani Instrumental – Sarangi |
| 4 | Sanjay Mukherjee | Hindustani Instrumental – Tabla |
| 5 | Krishna Vageesh | Carnatic Vocal |
| 6 | N. Vijay Siva | Carnatic Vocal |
| 7 | A S Krishnan Carnatic | Instrumental – Morching |
| 8 | Komanduri Seshadri Carnatic | Instrumental – Violin |
| 9 | Rakesh Chaurasia | Creative and Experimental – Flute |
| 10 | Prabhati Mukherjee | Other Major Traditions of Music – Sugam Sangeet |
| 11 | Anand Bhate | Other Major Traditions of Music – Abhang |
| 12 | Samandar Khan Manganiar | Other Major Traditions of Music – Mand |
Dance
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | Rajeswari Sainath | Bharatanatyam |
| 2 | Bipul Chandra Das | Kathak |
| 3 | Rajkumari Thambalsana Devi | Manipuri |
| 4 | Veena Murthy Vijay | Kuchipudi |
| 5 | Bichitrananda Swain | Odissi |
| 6 | Prema Ozah Borbayan | Sattriya |
| 7 | Sreedevi Rajan | Mohiniattam |
| 8 | Nripen Sahis | Chhau |
| 9 | Shashidharan Nair | Creative and Experimental |
| 10 | Kalamandalam Unnikrishnan | Music for Dance – Kathakali |
| 11 | Kumara Surya Narayana | Music for Dance |
Theatre
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | Satish Dave | Direction |
| 2 | T S Nagabharana | Direction |
| 3 | Ravi Chaturvedi | Direction |
| 4 | Om Katare | Direction |
| 5 | Gummadi Gopala Krishna Rao | Acting |
| 6 | Vagai Chanderasekar | Acting |
| 7 | Arun Nalavde | Acting |
| 8 | Dhiren D Merchant | Allied Theatre Arts – Lighting |
| 9 | Dinesh Kumar Poddar | Allied Theatre Arts – Lighting |
| 10 | Mukund Ram Marathe | Traditional Theatre – Sangeet Natak |
Folk, Tribal, Puppet, Mask & Instrument Making
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | Dursheti Ramaiah | Folk Music, Telangana |
| 2 | K Murugan | Folk Dance, Puducherry |
| 3 | S C Sharma | Folk & Tribal Music, Karnataka |
| 4 | Atamjeet Singh | Nautanki, Uttar Pradesh |
| 5 | Mahendra Ram | Folk Music, Bihar |
| 6 | Butan Devi and Somari Devi (Joint) | Folk Dance, Jharkhand |
| 7 | Ranajit Kumar Nag | Folk Dance – Sambalpuri, Odisha |
| 8 | Hawa Singh | Folk Music, Haryana |
| 9 | Veswuzo Phesao | Folk Music & Dance, Nagaland |
| 10 | Gulabi Sapera | Folk Dance, Rajasthan – Kalbeliya |
| 11 | Lourembam Bedabati | Folk Music, Manipur |
| 12 | Subhash Narayan Nakashe | Folk Dance, Maharashtra |
| 13 | Kishorbhai Somabhai Mistry | Instrument Making – Rudra Veena |
Overall & Others
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | T S Sathyavathi | Overall Contribution in Music |
| 2 | Voleti Rangamani | Overall Contribution in Dance |
| 3 | Shubhada Manohar Varadkar | Scholarship in Performing Arts – Dance |
| 4 | Tapati Chowdhurie | Art Critique – Performing Arts |
| 5 | Sunanda Nair | Overseas – Dance (Mohiniattam) |
Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2025
Music
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | Krishna Mohan Pathak | Hindustani Vocal – Dhrupad |
| 2 | Suresh Gandharv | Hindustani Vocal |
| 3 | Shailesh Bhagwat | Hindustani Instrumental – Shehnai |
| 4 | Jyoti Ganpati Hegde | Hindustani Instrumental – Rudra Veena |
| 5 | Pantula Rama | Carnatic Vocal |
| 6 | Papanasam Ashok Ramani | Carnatic Vocal |
| 7 | Tripoonithura N Radhakrishnan | Carnatic Instrumental – Ghatam |
| 8 | Anoor R. Anantha Krishna Sharma | Carnatic Instrumental – Mridangam |
| 9 | D. Srinivas Carnatic | Instrumental – Veena |
| 10 | Yugantar Sindoor | Other Major Traditions of Music – Sugam Sangeet |
| 11 | Satchidananda Das Other | Other Major Traditions of Music – Mardala |
| 12 | Seema Anil Sehgal | Other Major Traditions of Music – Sugam Sangeet |
Dance
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | Roja Kannan | Bharatanatyam |
| 2 | Krishna Mohan Mishra Maharaj, Vaswati Misra and Ram Mohan Maharaj (Trio) | Kathak |
| 3 | Kalamandalam Krishnakumar | Kathakali |
| 4 | Irengbam Nalini Devi | Manipuri |
| 5 | Seetha Nagajothy and P. Nagajothy (Joint) | Manipuri |
| 6 | Mallika Kandali | Sattriya |
| 7 | Girija Chandran | Mohiniattam |
| 8 | Pagulu Jena | Chhau – Mayurbhanj |
| 9 | Kaniyal Hariprasad | Music for Dance – Bharatanatyam |
| 10 | Bhaskar Jyoti Ojah | Music for Dance – Sattriya |
| 11 | S. Kumar | Major Traditions of Dance & Dance Theatre – Bhagavatamela |
Theatre
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | Kapildev Chandrakant Shukla | Direction |
| 2 | Kallol Bhattacharyya | Direction |
| 3 | Navdeep Kaur | Direction |
| 4 | Pramod Dnyandeo Pawar | Direction |
| 5 | Subodh Patnaik | Direction |
| 6 | Chetana Das | Acting |
| 7 | Suresh Kumar Hazzu | Acting |
| 8 | Makhan Lal Saraf | Acting |
| 9 | Ashok Patki | Allied Theatre Arts – Music for Theatre |
| 10 | Usha Nangiar | Other Major Traditions of Theatre – Nangiarkooth |
Folk, Tribal, Puppet, Mask & Instrument Making
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | Anup Ranjan Pandey | Folk Music, Chhattisgarh |
| 2 | Bheru Singh Chouhan | Folk Music, Madhya Pradesh – Nirguni |
| 3 | Surjya Kumar Debbarma | Folk Dance, Tripura |
| 4 | Joginder Singh Habbi | Folk Dance, Himachal Pradesh |
| 5 | Romalo Ram | Folk Music & Dance, Jammu and Kashmir |
| 6 | Harmanpreet Singh | Folk Dance, Punjab |
| 7 | Ali Mohammad | Folk Music, Ladakh |
| 8 | Domin Karbak | Folk Dance, Arunachal Pradesh |
| 9 | K. Rosiama | Folk Dance, Mizoram |
| 10 | Rani Maring | Instrument Making |
| 11 | Sushanta Kumar | Mask Making – Chhau |
| 12 | Mangla Prasad Sharma | Instrument Making |
Overall & Others
| S. No. | Artist | Field / Discipline |
| 1 | Kunal | Overall Contribution in Theatre |
| 2 | Maneesha Sathe | Overall Contribution in Dance – Kathak |
| 3 | Rakesh Sinha | Overall Contribution – Art Photography |
| 4 | Manjari Sinha | Art Critique – Performing Arts |
| 5 | T S Nandakumar | Overseas – Music (Mridangam) |
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