The President of India Pranab Mukherjee conferred the 52nd Jnanpith Award on Prof. Sankha Ghosh.
A poet and critique par excellence, a teacher of reputation, a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi award, way back in 1977, Padma Bhushan Prof. Sankha Ghosh is indeed the most deserving recipient of this award.
A professor of Bengali and an authority in his own right on the works of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, Prof. Sankha Ghosh represents the fluid brilliance that characterizes India’s multifarious literary genius.
One look at his works, be it Adim Lata- Gulmomay, Murkho Baro Samajik Noy or Baborer Prarthana, to name a few, and one would be left in no doubt about every word of the observations mentioned by the selection board to be to the point and correct.
The Jnanpith Award is an Indian literary award presented annually by the Bharatiya Jnanpith to an author for their “outstanding contribution towards literature”. Instituted in 1961, the award is bestowed only on Indian writers writing in Indian languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and English, with no posthumous conferral.
List of Jnanpith Award Recipients |
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| Year | Recipient(s) | Language(s) |
| 1965 (1st) |
G. Sankara Kurup | Malayalam |
| 1966 (2nd) |
Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay | Bengali |
| 1967 (3rd) |
Umashankar Joshi | Gujarati |
| 1967 (3rd) |
Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa ‘Kuvempu’ | Kannada |
| 1968 (4th) |
Sumitranandan Pant | Hindi |
| 1969 (5th) |
Firaq Gorakhpuri | Urdu |
| 1970 (6th) |
Viswanatha Satyanarayana | Telugu |
| 1971 (7th) |
Bishnu Dey | Bengali |
| 1972 (8th) |
Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’ | Hindi |
| 1973 (9th) |
D. R. Bendre | Kannada |
| 1973 (9th) |
Gopinath Mohanty | Odia |
| 1974 (10th) |
Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar | Marathi |
| 1975 (11th) |
Akilan | Tamil |
| 1976 (12th) |
Ashapoorna Devi | Bengali |
| 1977 (13rd) |
K. Shivaram Karanth | Kannada |
| 1978 (14th) |
Sachchidananda Vatsyayan | Hindi |
| 1979 (15th) |
Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya | Assamese |
| 1980 (16th) |
S. K. Pottekkatt | Malayalam |
| 1981 (17th) |
Amrita Pritam | Punjabi |
| 1982 (18th) |
Mahadevi Varma | Hindi |
| 1983 (19th) |
Masti Venkatesha Iyengar | Kannada |
| 1984 (20th) |
Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai | Malayalam |
| 1985 (21st) |
Pannalal Patel | Gujarati |
| 1986 (22nd) |
Sachidananda Routray | Odia |
| 1987 (23rd) |
Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar ‘Kusumagraj’ | Marathi |
| 1988 (24th) |
C. Narayana Reddy | Telugu |
| 1989 (25th) |
Qurratulain Hyder | Urdu |
| 1990 (26th) |
Vinayaka Krishna Gokak | Kannada |
| 1991 (27th) |
Subhash Mukhopadhyay | Bengali |
| 1992 (28th) |
Naresh Mehta | Hindi |
| 1993 (29th) |
Sitakant Mahapatra | Odia |
| 1994 (30th) |
U. R. Ananthamurthy | Kannada |
| 1995 (31st) |
M. T. Vasudevan Nair | Malayalam |
| 1996 (32nd) |
Mahasweta Devi | Bengali |
| 1997 (33rd) |
Ali Sardar Jafri | Urdu |
| 1998 (34th) |
Girish Karnad | Kannada |
| 1999 (35th) |
Nirmal Verma | Hindi |
| 1999 (35th) |
Gurdial Singh | Punjabi |
| 2000 (36th) |
Mamoni Raisom Goswami | Assamese |
| 2001 (37th) |
Rajendra Shah | Gujarati |
| 2002 (38th) |
Jayakanthan | Tamil |
| 2003 (39th) |
Vinda Karandikar | Marathi |
| 2004 (40th) |
Rehman Rahi | Kashmiri |
| 2005 (41st) |
Kunwar Narayan | Hindi |
| 2006 (42nd) |
Ravindra Kelekar | Konkani |
| 2006 (42nd) |
Satya Vrat Shastri | Sanskrit |
| 2007 (43rd) |
O. N. V. Kurup | Malayalam |
| 2008 (44th) |
Akhlaq Mohammed Khan ‘Shahryar’ | Urdu |
| 2009 (45th) |
Amarkant | Hindi |
| 2009 (45th) |
Sri Lal Sukla | Hindi |
| 2010 (46th) |
Chandrashekhara Kambara | Kannada |
| 2011 (47th) |
Pratibha Ray | Odia |
| 2012 (48th) |
Ravuri Bharadhwaja | Telugu |
| 2013 (49th) |
Kedarnath Singh | Hindi |
| 2014 (50th) |
Bhalchandra Nemade | Marathi |
| 2015 (51st) |
Raghuveer Chaudhari | Gujarati |
| 2016 (52nd) |
Shankha Ghosh | Bengali |