Jnanpith Award 2025:
Tamil lyricist and author R. Vairamuthu has been selected for the Jnanpith Award for the year 2025.
- Jnanpith Award is the highest literary honour of India, given to writers who have excelled in literature in different Indian languages.
- It was instituted in 1961.
- The prize carries a cash prize of Rs 11 lakh, a bronze statuette of Vagdevi (Goddess Saraswati), and a citation.
- It is sponsored by the cultural organization Bharatiya Jnanpith.
- It is given every year to an author for his/her outstanding contribution towards Indian literature through creative writing in any of the Indian languages mentioned in Schedule VIII of the Indian Constitution and English.
- Only those creative writers who are alive and are Indian citizens, can be proposed for the Award.
- A language which receives the award in a particular year is not eligible for consideration for the next two years.
- A writer who receives the Award once will not be considered again.
- The Award may not be given in a particular year if the Jnanpith Award Selection Board feels that there is no suitable name which comes up to the expected standard of the Award.
- The first recipient of the award was Malayalam poet G. Sankara Kurup, who received the award in 1965 for his collection of poems Odakkuzhal.
