The Konkani Bhasha Mandal’s annual awards to honour stalwarts and exponents of literature, service, education, journalism, column writing and children's literature were recently announced. The 61st Founder’s Day and annual award ceremony of KBM will be held at Gomant Vidya Niketan, Margao, on September 30 at 4.30 pm.
The awards were judged by an eminent jury panel for the following categories: Literary, Children's Literature, Youth Literature, Service, Activism, Teaching and Journalism.
Dr Jayanti Naik, Dr Prakash Parienkar and Vincy Quadros comprised of the jury for the Literary Awards while Chetan Acharya, Meena Kakodkar and Nayana Adarkar were the members of the jury panel for Children's Literature Award. The Youth Literature Award was decided by the jury panel of Gopinath Gauns, Pandurang Gaonkar and Fr Myron Barretto. The jury for the Service Award was RBS Komarpant, Dinesh Manerkar and Zilu Gaonkar. Nutan Sakhardande, Serafin Cota and Prashant Naik were the jury panelists for the Activist Award. The Teacher Award was judged by the jury panel of Anant Agni, Dr Bhushan Bhave and Pramod Surlakar. Br John Afonso, Prakash Kamat and Ajit Paiginkar comprised of the jury for the Journalism and Column Writing Award.
Pandurang Kashinath Gawde will be awarded the Konkani Bhasha Mandal Service Award. The Felicio Cardoz Memorial Teacher Award sponsored by
Serafin Cota will be awarded to Kashmiri Sameer Pawaskar. The Juze Piedad Quadros Memorial Activist Award sponsored by Vincy Quadros will be awarded to Harish Krishna Kamat.
Fr Jose Dias will be awarded the Ligorio Furtado Trust Journalism Award. Suhasini Prabhugaonkar (Sunita Dhempe) will be awarded the Chandrakant Keni Memorial Columnist Award Sponsored by Dinesh Manerkar. Dr Milind Mhamal, author of ‘Bhartiya Tantvadnyanacho Itihas’ will be awarded the Ramnath Manerkar Memorial Translation Award Sponsored by Dinesh Manerkar.
Menino Almeida, author of ‘Shim Ani Mer’ will be awarded the Narasimha Damodar Nayak Memorial Literary Award. Prof Vasant Sail, author of ‘Komul’ will be awarded the Rock Barreto Memorial Literary Award. Uday Narasimha Mhambaro, author of ‘Kalij Usawala’ will be awarded to Ramesh Veluskar Memorial Literary Award sponsored by Konkani Bhasha Mandal.
Manohar Rai Sardesai Memorial Children's Literature Award will be awarded to Umesh Manohar Sardesai, author of ‘Hundir Babule’. Dr Tanvi Kamat Bambolkar will be awarded the Fr Moreno D'Souza Memorial Youth Literature Award.
Anwesha Singbal, president of Konkani Bhasha Mandal says, “Congratulations to all the winners of the awards. All these award winners have done great service to the language in their own ways. Konkani language is thriving because of selfless people like these. Konkani Bhasha Mandal takes pride in bestowing these awards much deserved by them. KBM also takes this opportunity to thank all its judges, who have chosen these awardees through a very transparent process.