The 65th National Film Awards were hosted at the Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on Thursday. Filmmaker Boney Kapoor and daughter Janhvi and Khushi accepted the Best Actress award, which was posthumously conferred upon the late Bollywood actress Sridevi for her performance in ‘Mom’. Akshaye Khanna and late Vinod Khanna’s wife Kavita received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award on behalf of the late actor. This year, the prestigious awards ceremony was marred by the controversy after it was announced that President Ram Nath Kovind will not be giving away awards to all the 140 winners. The ceremony was boycotted by several recipients after it was revealed that the Information & Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Minister of State, Information & Broadcasting and Narendra Kumar Sinha, Secretary, Information & Broadcasting would hand over the rest of the awards in the absence of President Kovind.
