Nishagandhi Puraskaram

Nishagandhi Puraskaram () is an award given out by the government of Kerala in India. It is given out every year by the Tourism department. It is awarded to artists in the fields of dance and music.

The award comes with 1,50,000 rupees, a citation and a statuette. It is awarded as  part of the Nishagandhi Dance and Music Festival, which is held in January every year. This is a cultural annual programme of the Tourism department of Kerala. The award ceremony takes place at the Nishagandhi theatre in the Kanakakkunnu Palace ground in Trivandrum, the capital city of Kerala. The award was introduced to make the festival more popular on a national and international level. 

The Nishagandhi Puraskaram was first awarded to the classical dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai in 2013. Hindustani musician Lalith J Rao and Bharata Natyam artist Padma Subrahmanyam won the awards in the next years (2014 and 2015).  The most recent recipient of the award in 2016 is the music director Ilayaraja.

 Laureates 
Presented YearImageWinnerContributionsNotes 2013 75px Mrinalini Sarabhai "for her excellence in Classical dance."  2014 75px Lalith J. Rao "for the contributions in Hindustani Classical Music" 2015 75px Padma Subrahmanyam "for her eminent contributions in Bharata Natyam"  2016 75px Ilaiyaraaja "for his artistic excellence and contribution to the Indian film music industry"  2017 75px Bharati Shivaji "for her contributions in Mohiniyattom"  2018 75px V. P. Dhananjayan & Shantha Dhananjayan "for their contributions in Bharata Natyam"  2019 75px Kalamandalam Kshemavathy "for her contributions in Mohiniyattam" 2020 C. V. Chandrasekhar "for his contributions in Bharatanatyam"

 References 

Category:Art awards
Category:Kerala