Context:

• Tamil poet, lyricist, and novelist R. Vairamuthu has been selected for the 60th Jnanpith Award (for the year 2025).

Key Points:

• He is the third Tamil writer to receive this highest literary honor. Earlier, it was awarded to Akilan (1975) and Jayakanthan (2002).
• In a career spanning over four decades, he has written more than 37 books and won 7 National Film Awards.
• He also won the Sahitya Akademi Award (2003) for his novel Kallikattu Ithikasam.
• He was honored with the Padma Shri (2003) and Padma Bhushan (2014).
• Major works: Kallikattu Ithikasam, Karuvachi Kaviyam, Thanneer Desam, Moondram Ulagap Por (Third World War)

Jnanpith Award:

• It is the highest literary honor in India, established in 1961 by the Bharatiya Jnanpith.
• It is regarded as the “Nobel Prize of Indian Literature.”
• The award was instituted through Bharatiya Jnanpith, a cultural organization founded in 1944 by industrialist Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain and his wife Rama Jain.
• The first award (1965) was given to Malayalam poet G. Sankara Kurup for his work Odakkuzhal.
• The first woman awardee was Ashapurna Devi (1976), and the first English language winner was Amitav Ghosh (2018).
• The award is not given posthumously.
• Objective: To honor literary excellence in Indian languages.
• Award components: ₹11 lakh, a bronze statue of Goddess Saraswati (Vagdevi), and a citation.

Selection Process & Eligibility:

• Languages: 22 languages listed in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution (English included since 2013).
• Selection criteria: Overall literary contribution of the author (earlier awarded for a single work before 1982).

Notable Winners:

• Sumitranandan Pant (1968, Hindi), Mahadevi Verma (1982, Hindi)
• 2023 Winners: Jagadguru Rambhadracharya and Gulzar
• 2024 Winner: Vinod Kumar Shukla (first winner from Chhattisgarh)

Some Important Facts:

• Initially (1950), only 14 languages were included.
• Sindhi was added in 1967 (21st Amendment).
• Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali were added in 1992 (71st Amendment).
• Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Santhali were added in 2003 (92nd Amendment).