The Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s national academy for music, dance and drama, has named the recipients of its Akademi Fellowship (Akademi Ratna), Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar), and Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for 2024 and 2025. The General Council approved the selections during a meeting in New Delhi held March 22 to 26, 2026. The honours mark distinguished contributions to India’s performing arts, spanning both senior masters and emerging talent.
Seven Fellows, 108 Awardees, 106 Young Artists
Seven artists were unanimously elected as Akademi Fellows, the highest honour that can be conferred. It’s a tightly held distinction, capped at 40 living Fellows at any given time, which makes each new election significant within the performing arts community.
Alongside that, the Council selected 108 artists for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards. The list spans music, dance, and theatre, along with traditional, folk and tribal forms, puppetry, scholarship, and overall contribution to the arts. The winners come from states and union territories across the country, a spread that reflects how varied India’s performing arts landscape actually is on the ground.
A further 106 young artists were chosen for the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar, an award meant to recognize promising talent early in their careers. The Chairman will present these awards at a dedicated ceremony, separate from the Fellowship and Akademi Award conferral.
What Each Honour Comes With
The Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards trace back to 1952. They exist to recognize excellence, sustained artistic achievement, and meaningful contributions to the performing arts over time.
The Fellowship carries a cash prize of ₹3 lakh, along with a Tamrapatra (a copper plaque) and an Angavastram (a ceremonial garment). The Award itself comes with ₹1 lakh, plus the same Tamrapatra and Angavastram. The Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar, being the youngest-artist category, carries a smaller cash award of ₹25,000, again with a Tamrapatra and Angavastram included.
Ceremony Details
The Fellowship and the Akademi Awards will be conferred by the President of India during a special investiture ceremony. That’s a notable detail. It signals how these honours sit at the top of the country’s recognition system for performing artists, distinct even from the Yuva Puraskar ceremony, which the Chairman will preside over instead.
Key Takeaway: Two years’ worth of honours being announced together, 2024 and 2025, means this round covers a fairly wide swath of artists who’ve been waiting on recognition. Seven new Fellows joining a pool capped at 40 is a meaningful shift for that circle. And with 108 Akademi Awards and 106 Yuva Puraskars going to artists across nearly every corner of the country, the announcement touches classical, folk, tribal, and contemporary performance traditions all at once. It’s as much a snapshot of where Indian performing arts stand right now as it is a list of individual honours.
MCQ’s:
1. India’s national academy for music, dance and drama was established in:
A. 1947
B. 1950
C. 1952
D. 1956
2. The highest honour conferred by India’s national academy for music, dance and drama has a maximum limit of how many living recipients at any given time?
A. 25
B. 30
C. 40
D. 50
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