MUMBAI: The president of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam will give away the Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowship awards 2003 on 6 July 2003 at a function organised in Mumbai's Nehru Centre. The chief minister of Maharashtra and other top officials will also preside over the function. The Akademi has invited all the leading television news channels to cover the function and focus on the nominated 27 eminent artists who will receive 25 Akademi awards (including a joint award) this year.

 
The Sangeet Natak Akademi - the national academy for music, dance and drama - honours each year eminent practitioners of music, dance and drama and also those who serve arts with distinction.
The general council of the Sangeet Natak Akademi under the chairmanship of Dr. Bhupen Hazarika has elected Dr Shanno Khurana, eminent musician and scholar, and Kavalam Narayana Panikkar, eminent personality of theatre and performing arts traditions of Kerala as fellows of the Sangeet Natak Akademi.

"India's precious heritage of music, drama and dance is something which we must cherish and develop. We must do so not only for our sake but as our contribution to the cultural heritage of mankind. Nowhere is it truer than in the field of art. We must all strive to sustain means to create traditions that cannot be preserved but can only be created afresh. It is the aim of the Akademi to preserve the traditions by offering an institutional form," Dr Hazarika says.

The Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowship is restricted to 30 living artistes/scholars at any given point of time.

The Sangeet Natak Akademi awards have been conferred from 1952. They symbolise the highest standard of excellence and achievement on a national basis; recognise sustained individual work of high professional order and contribution to the practice and appreciation of these arts through performance ,teaching and scholarship.