Karnataka Ratna honour for the late Puneeth Rajkumar to be conferred on November 1

One of Kannada cinema’s greatest loss was when Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar passed away tragically, aged only 46, on October 29 last year. In the aftermath of his demise, Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai had said that the actor would be bestowed with the state’s highest civilian honour, the Karnataka Ratna, posthumously, in recognition of his contribution in the field of cinema and his extensive philanthropic activities.

Today, it was confirmed that the late Puneeth will be bestowed with the honour on the occasion of Karnataka Rajyotsava on November 1. The Karnataka government will form a committee comprising members from the Rajkumar family to present the award. The late actor will be the 10threcipient of the honour, which comes 30 years after his father, the late matinee idol Dr Rajkumar received it. Interestingly, Dr Rajkumar and Puneeth are the only two recipients from cinema so far. The award will be conferred only days after the actor’s first death anniversary.

Fans and well-wishers of the late actor are beyond thrilled at this recognition, but what’s also making them happy is that they will get to see him at least two more times on the big screen when Luckyman and Gandhada Gudi release this year. Luckyman, the Kannada remake of the Tamil film Oh My Kadavule, has Puneeth playing god, a role that his fans are looking forward to see him in.

More importantly, everyone’s also waiting for Gandhada Gudi, which was Puneeth’s dream project. A docu-feature about the forests of Karnataka that he shot with Wild Karnataka maker J Amoghavarsha, Gandhada Gudi has the actor as himself. In fact, only days prior to his demise, Puneeth had announced the trailer launch of Gandhada Gudi, which was supposed to happen on November 1 last year. He had told the media back then that he would be more than keen to speak about the project after the trailer launch, but sadly, that was not to be, as he passed away before that.

Subsequently, Amoghavarsha had promised that Gandhada Gudi would be brought to be big screen without fail and it is now slated to be release on October 28, on the occasion of the late actor’s first death anniversary.