The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee presented the Sunil Gangopadhyay Memorial Award for Excellence in Bengali Literature to eminent poet and literateur Shri Nirendranth Chakravarty for the year 2012 and Shri Sankha Ghosh for the year 2013 respectively at a Function held in Kolkata today (January 11, 2014).

The Sunil Gangopadhyay Memorial Award was instituted in 2012 by 'The Bengal', a cultural organization following the demise of its immediate past President Late Shri Sunil Gangopadhyay.

Addressing the gathering, the President said he was a mere reader and not an expert. He has read many of the works of Sunil Gangopdhyay and been extremely impressed with his talent as well as the amount of historical research which went into his writing. He congratulated the winners of the awards and complimented The Bengal for its contributions to art, culture and literature.