President honors Prakash Raj in 55th National Awards Ceremony

Finally the D-day has come. President Prathiba Patil honoured the team of 'Kanchivaram' on Wednesday, the 21st October, 2009. While Prakash Raj received the honour for his best performance in lead role in 'Kanchivaram', Priyadarshan was awarded the best director for the same film at the 55th National Awards ceremony. 'Kanchivaram' is about the problems of silk weavers before independence and Prakash Raj portrayed the role of a poor silk weaver. Prakash Raj expressed his gladness and said that winning the National Award for his performance in 'Kanchivaram' is his highest tribute in his film career. At the juncture he gave the entire credit to the successor of the film Priyadarshan. Earlier Prakash Raj also won the special jury national award in 1998 for Maniratnam directed 'Iruvar' (Iddaru in Telugu). Apart from the above Manna Dey, one of the greatest singers of Hindi and Bengali films received Dadasaheb Phalke award for the year 2007. Shankar Mahadevan and Shreya Ghoshal received the national awards for best male playback singer and best female playback singer respectively.