The 59th National Awards was held on Thursday at Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi. Vice President Hamid Ansari presented the awards to the award recipients. This year the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke award was received by the Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee for his contribution to Indian cinema. Among other winners, Marati actor Girish Kurkarni received the Best Actor award for his performance in ‘Deool’,
Vidya Balan received the Best Actress award for ‘The Dirty Picture’, actor Sanjay Suri and director Onir received the Best Hindi Film award for ‘I Am’, and Siddharth Roy Kapoor collected the Best Children’s Film award for ‘Chillar Party’ on behalf of UTV Motion Pictures’ producers.
This is Vidya’s first National Award as Best Actress. She received Rajat Kamal from the Vice President. Vidya played the southern siren Silk Smitha in the biopic.
