the first fellow of the akademi, s. radhakrishnan, was elected as fellow in 1968, fourteen years after the akademi was constituted. radhakrishnan had previously served on the council of the sahitya akademi, first as vice-president, and later, as president. he was appointed "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to indian thought and to the tradition of universal humanism". the first woman to be elected fellow was mahadevi varma, in 1979, . followed by three women writers in 1994 (malayalam poet balamani amma, bengali novelist and poet ashapoorna devi, and urdu novelist qurratulain hyder). hindi author krishna sobti was honoured in 1996, and english novelist anita desai in 2009. on 16 february 2016, the akademi announced the fellowship to punjabi writer and novelist gurdial singh and bengali poet nirendranath chakravarty. , there are only 20 fellows of the sahitya akademi.