The Sangeet Natak Akademi honours the greatest artistes in the country in music, theatre and the arts with the Akademi Ratna. These artistes become the SNA's Fellows.

Only a select band of artistes are given this honour. At present, there are only 32 Fellows.

This year, SNA has announced a new set of Fellows and among them are Carnatic musician, violnist Lalgudi Jayaraman and classical dancer Yamini Krishnamurthy.

The others are Pandit Jasraj, actor Shreeram Lagoo, singer Kishori Amonkar and theatreperson Kamlesh Dutt Tripathi.

The SNA also announced the annual awards called the Akademi Puraskar awards.

Among the awardees are the veteran vocalist Parassala Ponnammal based in Kerala, mandolin wizard U. Shrinivas of Chennai, mridangam vidwan Dandamudi Sumathi Ram Mohan Rao of Vijayawada, Bharatanatyam dancer Ananda Shankar Jayant based in Hyderabad, Kuchipudi dancer Vyjayanthi Kashi based in Bangalore, 'Kalamandalam' Rajan for Kathakali and Kala Krishna for Andhranatyam.

Writer-scholar Leela Venkataraman has also been named for the honour.

The awardees are generally honoured by the President of India at a function in New Delhi.