Bollywood actor Ajay Devgan was adjudged best actor for the The Legend Of Bhagat Singh in the 50th National Film Awards, while Konkona Sen Sharma bagged the best actress award for her performance in Mr And Mrs Iyer.
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The award for best director went to Aparna Sen for Mr And Mrs Iyer, while Buddhadeb Dasgupta's Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (The Tale of a Naughty Girl) was adjudged best film, chairman of the jury Prakash Jha announced in Delhi on Saturday.
The award for the best popular film went to Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas.
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Devgan had bagged his first national award for his role in Zakhm, which was directed by Mahesh Bhatt and released in 1998. He shared the award with popular Malayalam star Mammootty, who got it for playing the role of Dr B R Ambedkar in the English film, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, directed by Dr Jabbar Patel.
The awards, which were presented in 2000, but in the normal course should have been presented in mid-1999, were delayed because of various reasons, including political turmoil.
The Indira Gandhi National Award for the First Film of a Director was shared by Abhijit Chaudhuri and Subhadro Chaudhury for the Bengali films Patal Ghar and Prohor respectively.
The Nargis Dutt Award for National Integration also went to Mr and Mrs Iyer.
Singer Shreya Goshal bagged the award for the song Dola re dola, which also got the best choreography award for Saroj Khan, art direction award for Nitin Chandrakant Desai, and costume design award for Neeta Lulla, Abbu Jani and Sandeep Khosla.
The awards were announced at a press meet by feature film jury chairman Prakash Jha, non-feature film chairman Rajiv Mehrotra, and book jury chairperson Udaya Tara Nayar in the presence of Neelam Kapur, director of film festivals.
The best non-feature film award went to Narayan Gangaram Surve, directed by Arun Khopkar and the best first non-feature of a director award went to Prabhu Radhakrishnan for Paramapatham and Vindo Mankara for Beyond Or Within.
The film Swaraj, which dealt with women's empowerment, by Anwar Jamal has won the best feature film award on other social issues while the children's film award went to Baaja by the renowned A K Bir for the Children's Film Society, India.
Actress Raakhee won the best supporting actress award for her role in Shubho Mahurat while Chandrashekhar won the best supporting award for the Tamil film Nanba Nanba.
Shweta Prasad, who had played the twins in the Hindi film Makdee, and Keertana who acted in Kannathil Muthamittal won the best child star awards.
Udit Narayan won the best singer award for Chhote Chhote Sapne in the Hindi film Zindagi Khoobsoorat Hai.
