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Who was the first winner of the Jnanpith Award?
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Answer: Option B — G. Sankara Kurup
Detailed Solution
Sankara Kurup. G. Sankara Kurup (1901-1978), a Malayalam poet from Kerala, received the first Jnanpith Award in 1965 for his collection of poems "Odakkuzhal" ("The Bamboo Flute"), published in 1950. He was known as "Mahakavi" and was a pioneer of modern Malayalam poetry, known for his symbolism and mysticism. He was later nominated to the Rajya Sabha and received the Padma Bhushan.
About the Jnanpith Award:
- It is regarded as India's highest literary award.
- It was instituted in 1961 by the Bharatiya Jnanpith, a cultural organisation founded by the industrialist Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain and his wife Rama Jain of the Times of India group.
- It is given every year to an Indian writer for an outstanding contribution to literature in any of the 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule, or in English (included since 2013).
- The award includes a cash prize (now Rs 11 lakh), a citation and a bronze replica of Vagdevi (Goddess Saraswati).
- Until 1982, it was given for a single work; since then, it has been given for the writer's overall contribution to literature.
Some notable winners:
- Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay (Bengali, 1966): the first Bengali winner.
- Sumitranandan Pant (Hindi, 1968): the first Hindi winner.
- Ashapoorna Devi (Bengali, 1976): the first woman to win the award.
- Amitav Ghosh (2018): the first English-language writer to win it.
- Hindi writers have won it the most times, followed by Kannada.
- Recent winners include Gulzar (Urdu) and Jagadguru Rambhadracharya (Sanskrit) for 2023, and Vinod Kumar Shukla (Hindi) for 2024.
Other major literary awards:
Sahitya Akademi Award: given by the National Academy of Letters (founded 1954).
Saraswati Samman: given by the K. K. Birla Foundation.
Why not the other options?
- ✗Ashapoorna Devi was the first woman to win the Jnanpith (1976).
- ✗Sumitranandan Pant was the first Hindi writer to win it (1968).
- ✗Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay won it in 1966.
Quick tip
Remember: First Jnanpith = G. Sankara Kurup (Malayalam, 1965, "Odakkuzhal"); first woman = Ashapoorna Devi (1976); first English writer = Amitav Ghosh (2018); award instituted 1961.
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Art & Culture Personalities — Preparation
This question tests your understanding of Art & Culture Personalities, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.
This topic covers the people behind India's art and culture: classical and folk dancers, vocalists and instrumentalists, painters, sculptors, theatre and film personalities, and the gurus who founded or revived art forms. Questions also cover the art form each person is known for and the honours they have received. Exams typically name a person and ask for their art form, or name an art form and ask who popularised it. Recent Padma award winners from the arts appear often, so link each name to the field and state the award was given for. Since award lists change every year, always revise from the latest official list rather than relying on older notes. Practise the art and culture personalities questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.