Nandi Awards for Tollywood Stars

The Nandi Awards is one of the prestigious awards in Andhra Pradesh. The state government confers Nandi award annually to Telugu film industry artists. The Nandi Award is being named after the big granite bull at Lepakshi — a cultural and historical symbol of Andhra Pradesh and ‘Nandi’ means the ‘bull’. There are four categories in Nandi Awards - Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Copper.

The Nandi Wards presentation fete was held on 16 November in Hyderabad in the presence of the Chief Minister Dr. YS Rajasekhar Reddy. The Chief Minister has presented the NTR award for the year 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 to Krishna, Ilayaraja, Ambarish and Waheeda Rehman, respectively, during the Nandi Awards presentation. The 33rd and 34th Raghupati Venkaiah Naidu Awards for 2005 and 2006 were presented to senior producers MS Reddy and Dr. D. Rama Naidu.

The films Bommarillu- directed by Bhaskar, Godavarid- directed by Sekhar Kammula and Ganga, won the Nandi Award (2006) for best films category. Pokiri movie has won the Nandi Award for the best popular feature film.

Nandi Award (2006)

Best Director: Sekhar Kammula (Godavari)

Best Actor: Akkineni Nagarjuna (Sri Ramadasu)

Best Actress: Nandita Das (Kamli)

Best Villain: Sai Kumar (Samanyudu)

Best Child Actor: Raghava (Style)

Best Debut Director: Bhaskar (Bommarillu)

Best Music Director: KM Radhakrishna (Godavari)

Playback Singer: KJ Yesudas (Velli potunnava Talli – Ganga)

Playback Singer: Sunita (Godavari – Andanga Lena)