Felicitating the deserving

To pay tribute to the legendary singer-actor Kishore Kumar, the 18th Kishore Kumar Awards ceremony was organised by Kishore Kumar Memorial Club (KKMC), at Pearey Lal Auditorium, New Delhi.

The well-known art promoter Lala Ram and C P Sharma along with Amarjit Singh Kohli inaugurated the event by lighting the lamp. The KKMC Founder General Secretary Kamal Dhiman asked Indian Government to confer the posthumous Bharat Ratna to legendary Kishore Kumar at the occasion.

A book titled 'Madhubala – The Venus of Indian Cinema' by Kamal Dhiman was also released by the Senior Leader Dharampal and social activist Col. Dalmir Singh under the supervision of Under the supervision of Parveen Sharma, President, KKMC; and D C Maurya, Vice President, KKMC.

Kamal Dhiman informed that every year two awards are given to those who have made significant contribution in the field of art and culture (Kala Ratna Award) and society (Samaj Ratna Award).

This year's 'Kala Ratna Award' was given to film actors Manoj Bakshi, Banwari Lal Jhol, and Deepak Raja, to name a few. Whereas, the 'Samaj Ratna' awardees included social activist Pandit Mahesh Chandra Sharma, Sandeep Kumar, Pankaj Kumar Shrotriya, Ajay Bansal, and Rakesh Pandey.

In the programme, singers from all the corners of the country paid their due respect to Kishore Kumar by singing his songs under the direction of Mohammed Rehan and Ashish Kaushal. Performances by Dr Suneet Sekhri, Nadeem, Sunil Gadhia, Bhaskar Thakur, Deepak Verma, Mumtaz, Chandni, Sreeju Premarajan, Rehan, Piyush, Wg. Cdr. Santosh Asthana, to name a few were amongst the most liked presentations of the evening.

The programme was conducted by I P Singh Bawa and maintained well by music director of DO-RE-MI fame Satish Popli, and Jaswant Popli. Atul Tuli, Dr Sachin Bharti, Amardeep Singh, Triloki Nath, and Ramesh Nautiyal were among the renowned names, who attended the event.