Noted Litterateur Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi to receive Sukapha Award

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Sukapha Award 2020 will be presented to noted litterateur Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi on December 2.

The award will be conferred on by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal during a programme at the Themesi Higher Secondary School playground in Moran under Dibrugarh district.

Since 2004, the Sukapha Award was presented every year, however, after 2011, it is being presented once in every three years.

The award carries Rs 3 lakh, a citation and an angabastra.

Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Rameshwar Teli, Rajya Sabha MP Kamakhya Prasad Tassa, MP Tapan Kumar Gogoi, Moran MLA Chakradhar Gogoi will be present in the programme among others.

Thongchi's first literary creation is a poem named Junbai. He is the recipient of India's highly prestigious award Padma Shri 2020 for his work in the field of literature and education.

He was born on 13 June, 1952 to late Tashi Phuntsu Thongchi and late Rinchin Chojom Thongchi at Jigaon village of present day West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. He started his literary pursuit from his childhood school days. Although his mother tongue is a dialect called Sherdukpen spoken by few thousand people, he started practicing his writings in Assamese language which was the medium of instruction in NEFA schools in those days.

His first poem Junbai was published in 1967 in an Assamese children's magazine of same name when he was followed by some patriotic poems in some leading Assamese newspapers and magazines. It increased his popularity as a poet amongst his teachers, fellow students, friends and other residents of town of Bomdila, the headquarter town of the Kameng Frontier Division. Due to encouragement received from his teachers for writing one act plays on the life of tribal people of NEFA and on patriotic theme, Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi wrote several such one act plays and staged at several places. Himantar Dabanal Fire at Border one of his another one act plays, was amalgamated with another such drama and represented the state at National Dramatic Festival held at Bangalore.

In 1977 he was appointed as Arunachal Pradesh Civil Service Officer. Thongchi was inducted to Indian Administrative Service in 1992.

He is also a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, 2005 for Assamese novel Mauna Outh Mukhar Hriday, Phulchand Khandelwal Sanghati Bata award, 2001, the Bhasha Bharti Award from the Central Institute of Indian Language (CIIL, Mysore), 2005, Basudev Jalan Award from Axam Xahitya Xabha, and Bhupen Hazarika Award 2017 from Sarhad (a Pune based NGO).

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