Mangaluru: The National Maya Kamath Memorial Awards for excellence in Cartooning- 2014 were announced yesterday and  renowned cartoonist Sathish Acharya has bagged the top honour. The jury included noted playwright and actor Girish Karnad, well-known artist S G Vasudev and senior cartoonist B G Gujjarappa.

He had recently named by the prestigious Forbes Magazine in the list of leading personalities who have spread India’s excellence through their imagination and thought processes.

This at a time when governments, both at the centre and state and various organizations are quick to pounce on creativity in the name of ‘offense to the sensitivities’
 
Acharya won the first place for his political cartoon ‘Z-Security for Baba Ramdev’ He was followed by Kantesh Badiger of Bengaluru and Rohan Chakravarty, Nagpur at second and third place respectively.
 
The first prize for the Best Foreign Cartoon-2014 went to Paolo Dalponte of Italy, and second prize to Behzad Ghafari of Canada. Leeza John was adjudged Best Budding Cartoonist-2014.
 
All in all the competition received 91 entries from Indian cartoonists for the Award for Excellence in Political Cartooning, which Acharya won, 44 for Best Budding Cartoonist Award and 53 for the Best Foreign Cartoon Award.  The competition received entries from all over the world, from countries as far as Serbia, Croatia, Iran, Cyprus, Italy and Macedonia. The quality of the all the entries was very high.
 
The formal ceremony and prize distribution will be distributed on June 6, 2015 at the gallery of Indian Institute of Cartoonists in Bengaluru. An exhibition of selected entries will also be displayed.