[When the Sahitya Akademi awards were being returned by a number of awardees in protest against rising intolerance in the country, rattled by the development, the Sangh Brigade unleashed a sort of whisper campaign that these awardees were not returning the money that had come along with the award. The news report reproduced below quite conclusively nails that lie.]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sahitya-Akademi-refuses-to-encash-cheques-from-authors-returning-their-awards/articleshow/50226389.cms Sahitya Akademi refuses to encash cheques from authors returning their awards TNN | Dec 18, 2015, 04.21 AM IST New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi on Thursday said it has decided not to encash cheques received by 35 Akademi award winners who returned it as a mark of protest against the "rising intolerance" in the country and specifically the killing of Kannada writer MM Kalburgi who was also a member of the SA board. ***"We have received cheques by 35 authors but the Akademi has decided not to deposit the cheques to establish its refusal to accept the return of awards," K Sreenivas Rao, secretary, Sahitya Akademi said while announcing the awards for this year.*** [Emphasis added,] Explaining the reason why Akademi did not take back the awards from protesting writers, Rao said, "The Sahitya Akademi is an institution for the writers, by the writers and of the writers. They are respected writers and are like family members of the Akademi. They can never be separated from the institution and the Akademi has decided that it will not take back the awards." He said cheques were received from 35 authors while in case of Aman Sethi, a Yuva Puraskar awardee, the Akademi refused to accept the cheque when he came over to return it. Bengali Sahitya Puraskar winner Mandakranta Sen had approached the Akademi for its account details in order to return her prize money, but it was decided not to divulge the details to her. Rao said, "No institute thinks about taking back awards while conferring them. If they do, there would be no point giving them awards in the first place. Giving awards is a celebration." Asked what Akademi is doing about resignation by five writers, including poet and executive board member K Satchidanandan, from the Akademi, Rao said, "The decision to step down is an individual decision. We have never politicised anything here. There is no space for any political involvement in the Akademi." The Akademi had held an emergency meeting on October 23 and passed a unanimous resolution condemning the killing of Kalburgi and appealed to the Centre and state governments to take steps to prevent such incidents in future. Snipped -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
