A grand function for the most prestigious State awards, “The Nandi Awards” for the years 2005 and 2006 was held at Lal Bahadur Stadium, Hyderabad this evening, the 16th of November, 2008. Huge number of people witnessed the function with most of them being Superstars Krishna and Mahesh Babu’s fans.

The function was attended by who is who of Tollywood industry, the most prominent being Mahesh Babu and Nagarjuna. Gayatri Rao anchored the colourful dance show while Suma announced the awards. The traditional dance of Andhra Pradesh, ‘Kuchipudi’ dance was the highlight of the cultural show.

The best male actor Nandi Award for 2005 was received by Superstar Mahesh Babu for ‘Athadu’ and Akkineni Nagarjuna for ‘Sreeramadasu’ for the year 2006. Likewise the best actress Nandi Award for 2005 was given to Trisha for the film ‘Nuvvosthanante Nenodhantana” and for the year 2006 Nandita Das received the award for 'Kamli'.

NTR National Award for the year 2003 was presented to Krishna, for 2004 to maestro Ilayaraja, for 2005 to Kannada actor Ambarish and for the year 2006 the award went to yester year beautiful actress Waheeda Rehman. All these award winners also received a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh each.

Similarly the Raghupathy Venkaiah Award for the year 2005 was received by M S Reddy and for 2006 the award was presented to D Rama Naidu.

The best film Nandi for 2005 went to ‘Pothe Poni’ while for 2006 it’s ‘Bommarillu’. The second best film for 2005 was ‘Anukokunda Oka Roju’ and for 2006,the third best Nandi went to ‘Gowtham SSC’. Similarly, the second best film for 2006 had gone to ‘Godavari’ and the film ‘Ganga’ bagged the Nandi for the third best film for 2006.

The best director for 2005 was Krishna Vamsi for the film ‘Chakram’ while Sekhar Kammula received the Nandi Award for the film ‘Godavari’ as the best director for 2006.

Surender Reddy for ‘Athanokkade’ received the best debut director for 2005 and Bhaskar received for ‘Bommarillu’ for 2006.

Today’s Nandi Awards also witnessed two things. One is the hike in cinema ticket rate from Rs 35 to Rs 50 and the second is two national awards in the name of B N Reddy and B Nagi Reddy will be introduced from the year 2009. The above two things were announced by Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy.

Speaking on the dais Mahesh Babu said that this is his second Nandi award that he is receiving from YSR. He thanked his director Trivikram and producer Jayabheri Kishore for the award and said that ‘Athadu’ is his favourite among all his films. Recollecting the memories of his grandmother he said that she would place all his Nandis in their pooja room.

Akkineni Nagarjuna said that he is honoured to have got the opportunity to portray the roles like Annamayya and Sreeramadasu and dedicated the award to the entire team of “Sreeramadasu.” Further speaking he thanked YSR for considering the producers request and increasing the ticket prices.