Lata Award to Kavita Krishnamurthy

Indore, May 8: Reputed playback singer Kavita Krishnamurthy has been conferred with the National Lata Mangeshkar Award for light music, instituted by the Madhya Pradesh government's Culture department.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan bestowed the honour on the artiste here yesterday at the Nehru Stadium. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh and a citation. The function was presided over by Minister of State for Culture Lakshmikant Sharma.

Earlier recipients were Naushad, Kishore Kumar, Jaidev, Manna Dey, Khayyam, Asha Bhonsle, Lakshmikant-Pyarelal, Yesudas, R D Burman, Sandhya Mukherji, Anil Biswas, Talat Mehmood, Kalyanji-Anandji, Jagjit Singh, Ilayaraja, S P Balasubramaniam, Bhupen Hazarika, Mahendra Kapoor, Ravindra Jain, Suresh Wadkar and A R Rahman.

Krishnamurthy, who carved a niche for herself in the film and light music arena due to her efforts over the past four decades, was born in Delhi. Singing was something she inherited from her mother, while her guru was Balram Puri. In her youth, she presented several programmes with Dey, Hemant Kumar and Mukesh.

Lakshmikant-Pyarelal gave her the first break against Mangeshkar in the film 'Maang Bharo Sajna'. The numbers of 'Pyaar Jhukta Nahin' made her famous and Krishnamurthy, who was conferred with the Padmashri last year, has sung in 250 films and rendered several numbers in Marathi, Punjabi, Bangla, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

UNI