Chennai: Tamilnadu government today announced annual Kalaimamani awards. Those selected for the awards include film personalities Sivakarthikeyan, Ramarajan, Yogi Babu, Aishwarya Rajesh, Sangeetha, Gautham Vasudev Menon and D Imman among others. Playback singers Sujatha, Ananthu are also chosen.
Filmmakers Manoj Kumar, Liyakath Ali Khan, PRO Singaravelu are selected for awards.
Veteran actresses Saroja Devi, Sowcar Janaki besides legendary singer Jamuna Rani will be presented the awards this year.
Saroja Devi has acted in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi movies. She acted in around 200 films in over six decades.
She played the lead heroine in 161 consecutive films in 29 years between 1955 and 1984. Saroja Devi received the Padma Sri, the fourth-highest civilian honour, in 1969 and Padma Bhushan, third highest civilian award, in 1992 from the Government of India and honorary doctorate from Bangalore University.
Sowcar Janaki has acted in over 400 films in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and Malayalam. She also performed on stage in over 300 shows and was a radio artiste during her earlier years.
Jamuna Rani has sung over 6,000 songs in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Sinhala languages. She worked under music composers G Ramanathan, K V Mahadevan, S. Dakshinamurthi, A M Rajah, Vedha, Chalapathi Rao, Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy, Sudharsanam, G K Venkatesh, V Kumar, T R Pappa, S. V. Venkatraman, Kunnakkudi Vaidyanathan, G Devarajan, Ilaiyaraaja and Chandrabose.
Many small screen artistes including Devadarshini, Santhi Williams, Nandhakumar and Nithya will be given Kalaimamani awards.
Some of the winners include biggest names from Carnatic music, folk art, traditional dance performances, theatre, Tamil literature, critics and even media too.
These awards are given by the Tamil Nadu Iyal Isai Nataka Mandram (literature, music and theatre) for excellence in the field of art and literature.