Vishnuvardhan to be on postage stamp

Kannada film legend, the late Dr Rajkumar, was the first Kannada actor to have his face on a postage stamp in 2009. And now, the Indian Postal Department has paid tribute to the late Dr Vishnuvardhan by including a stamp bearing his image, among 50 other celebrity stamps, which will be released during the south film industries' Centenary Celebrations of Indian Cinema in Chennai.
It is said that Vishnuvardhan is the lone Kannada actor in the new set of stamps. In early May, President Pranab Mukherjee had released 50 commemorative stamps, which bore the likenesses of important film personalities from Indian cinema. Sources said the first two sheets consist of nine stamps, each carrying pictures of winners of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award; the other four sets are said to have eight pictures each of famous film celebrities from across India. The Bollywood film industry is said to dominate the list, followed by actors from the Bengali, Tamil and Telugu film industries. The Kannada and Malayalam audiences expressed their unhappiness when they learnt that only Vishnuvardhan and Prem Nazir would represent their industries respectively.
The president of the Karnataka Rural Philatelic Association, MR Prabhakar, said that the department is helpless when there is no proposal from people and organizations. He added that while governments, elected representatives and members of film bodies elsewhere have expressed the importance of bringing out such stamps by sending proposals, there was no such concerted effort in Karnataka.