No Sahitya Akademy Award in Nepali language this year

GANGTOK/SIKKIM: No Nepali books have been selected this year for the Sahitya Akademy Award (SAA) 2011, which is held every year at New Delhi.The three jury member team in Sikkim which is responsible for the selection of the books for the said award disqualified the books under technical problems. The jury comprised of Dr. Rajendra Bhandari, Professor MP Lama, and Professor Ghana Shyam Nepal.
Regarding the issue speaking to one of the jury Dr. Rajendra Bhandari, informed Sikkim Mail that the level and standards of the books were not up to the mark for the award. Adding further he stated that the books which are to be sent for the award needs to meet up to the national standard which was missing in the books that were submitted this year.‘Lots of grammatical mistakes were found in the writings’ said Bhandari.
Mentioning further Bhandari said that due to lack of consciousness among the fraternity the progress of literature has been at halt. Nepali should learn from Bengal and Assam as the two has done a lot in their respective fields. Bhandari even compared the language in Sikkim and Nepal where he said that Nepal has
progressed a lot as compared to that of Sikkim. ‘We need to focus in our language in order to up grade the standards’ said Bhandari.Vice-President, selection committee of SAA Biswanath Tiwari announced the name of 22 books which got selected for the award yesterday. This year Nepali and Maithili are not included. The award ceremony is scheduled to be held on 14th February 2012 in New Delhi. The Award carries a cash of Rs 1 lakh, a certificate and a shawl. The award will be given only to constitutionally recognized languages.

Source: sikkim mail