Unnecessary ruckus

Sir — It is unfortunate that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which cherry-picked just 11 film personalities to receive the National Film Awards from President Ram Nath Kovind, which led the rest of the awardees to stay away from the awards function in protest against the disparity shown to them, has decided to send the absentees their citations, medals and cheques by post.

Nobody knows what yardstick was used by the Ministry headed by Smriti Irani while inviting the chosen 11 to receive the awards from the President. On his part, the President, who is also well aware of the pain the rest of the awardees would be put into due to disparity shown to them, should have stalled the move of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and could have advised it to organise two separate days to distribute the awards if indeed it was very difficult for him to present the awards to all on the same day.

Of course, the left out awardees have reasons to feel insulted as they were denied the honour of receiving the awards from the President.

However, they must have felt more offended as they were destined to receive the same through post. Rightly, they stayed away from the award function.