`Baahubali,' Bachchan bag National Awards
SS Rajamouli's magnum opus `Baahubali' won the prestigious National Award at the 63rd awards on Monday. Bollywood Stars Amitabh Bachchan and Kangana Raut won the Best Actor and Best Actress awards for their roles in `Piku' and `Tanu Weds Manu,' respectively. Sanjay Leela Bhansali won the Best Director award for his period drama, Bajirao Mastani. Ramesh Sippy chaired the 11-member jury for selecting the movies for 2016. Regional films showed their strong presence among the nominees, but Bollywood stole the show. Ramesh Sippy and Satish Kaushik had recommended the awards for the nominees to the Information and Broadcasting minister Arun Jaitley. For Amitabh, this the fourth National Award. His earlier awards were for `Agneepath,' `Paa' and `Black.' For Kangana, too, this is second successive award. She had won the earlier award for `Queen' and Best Supporting Actress Award for `Fashion.' The coveted National Awards cover the Indian cinema as a whole and represent merit.
