The West Bengal government will organize an international music festival in Kolkata in December, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Monday.
Addressing a function where she honored eminent people of different fields with Banga Bhushan Samman and Banga Bibhushan Samman, Banerjee said the music event will be held all-night at the Red Road with international musicians performing along with Indian and Bengali artistes.
Seventeen distinguished personalities, including Nobel laureate economist Abhijit Banerjee, eminent economist Kaushik Basu and nuclear physicist Bikash Sinha, were given the Banga Bibhushan Samman -- the highest civilian honor conferred by the state government.
Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen was not present to receive the award as he was out of the country. His name was also not mentioned in the program.
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Industrialists Radhe Shyam Goenka and Harshavardhan Neotia, classical instrumentalist Pt Debajyoti Basu, filmmaker Srijit Mukherji and football clubs Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, and Mohammedan Sporting were among the other recipients.
Twenty personalities were given the Banga Bhushan Samman. Among them were eminent doctor Monimoy Banerjee, poet Srijato Bandyopadhyay, actor and TMC MP Dev, and state Women's Commission chairperson Leena Gangopadhyay. Veteran journalists Jayanta Ghoshal and Debashis Bhattacharya were also given the award.
Actors Soham Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan, who is also a TMC MP, were conferred with the Mahanayak Samman, in memory of matinee superstar Uttam Kumar.
