Shanti Rajanikant Literary Awards presented

Hyderabad: Well-known short story writers Vempalli Sharif and Mallipuram Jagadish were presented the eighth Shanti Rajnikanth Memorial Literary Awards here on Friday. A jury of writers has selected Sharif’s hugely popular ‘Jhumma’ and Jagadish’s ‘Shilakola’ from among 47 entries for the awards. “There was no regional bias in the selection of stories. The anthologies which have depth, novel in presentation and nearer to life of the down-trodden were given preference and ten collections of stories were filtered, and out of them these two were finally selected. Interestingly, both Sharif and Jagadish got equal marks,” Dr Shanti Narayan, the founder of Vimala Shanti Narayan Literary and Social Service Organization, informed.

Justice Chandra Kumar of AP High Court presented the awards. “It’s writers and poets who view, study and analyse the society from a different perspective. They can influence and change the course of life,” he remarked.

Nandamuri Lakshmi Parvathi, a leader of YSRCP, Dr D Vijayabhaskar, a winner of Sangeet Natak Academy Award, and V R Rasani, an eminent writer, also participated in the programme.