The Bengali poet Shankha Ghosh is the recipient of the Jnanpith Award, 2016. He is the 52nd recipient of the Jnanpith Award. The first Jnanpith Award was given to the Malayalam writer G. Sankara Kurup in 1965 for his collection of poems – ‘Odakkuzhal’. Instituted in 1961, the award is bestowed only on the Indian writers writing in Indian languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and English, with no posthumous conferral.