K. S. Chithra

British Parliament at House of Commons, United Kingdom in 2003.^[12][13] People of India

Padma Shri in 2005 for her valuable contributions towards the Indian musical fraternity.^[15][16] In 2009, She became the first Indian artist to be honoured by Government of China while performing live at the Qinghai International river festival.^[8][3] Barring Lata Mangeshkar, she also remains the second female playback singer from India to have performed at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London in 2001 and her Performance was applauded with much appreciation by a roomful of an international audience.^[17][8] Her song "Kannalane/Kehna Hi Kya" from the film Bombay (1995) was included in United Kingdom The Guardian's "1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear Before You Die" list.^[18]

Trivandrum (now Thiruvananthapuram) of the Kerala state. Her father, Krishnan Nair was a school teacher and a music enthusiast who taught basics of music to all his three children.^[19] He passed away after a long battle with cancer on 18 July 1986. Her mother Shanthakumari was also a music teacher. She has an elder sister, K. S. Beena who is a former singer and younger brother K. S. Mahesh who is a musician.^[20] Chithra completed her schooling at the Cotton Hill Government Girls High School in Thiruvananthapuram. She acknowledges that it was the teachers of the school who spotted her talent in music.^[21]

National Talent Search Scholarship from the Government of India during the period 1978 - 1984.^[23]

S. P. Venkitesh and her maximum duet songs in Malayalam are with K. J. Yesudas and M. G. Sreekumar. As of 2017, she has won the Kerala State Awards for the record 16 times. Her latest song "Theerame" from the movie Malik (2021) became another awesome hit in Malayalam Music Industry.^{[24][25][26][27]}

Raj-Koti, Ilaiyaraja, K. V. Mahadevan & K. Chakravarthy for the years 1986–88, but she gained initial recognition/break-through for compositions by Ilaiyaraja like "Jallanta Kavvinta" from Geethanjali (1989) & "Ninnukori Varnam" from Gharshana( 1988) and then went onto sing several songs to many composers in Telugu. It was from then onwards that she became a notable singer in Telugu and went on to record every other song in each album being the solo card female singer for almost all the films in the 90s. It was the moment where she established herself as a well recognized singer and strengthening her position in Telugu films by almost taking the place of S. Janaki from 1990.^[28] Chithra received her first Nandi Award, presented by Government of Andhra Pradesh for "Kalika Chilakala Koliki" from Seetharamayya Gari Manavaralu (1991). She won a total of 11 Nandi Awards as Best Female Playback Singer for various Telugu songs.^[29] As the years passed by Chithra was recognized as a legendary singer in Telugu whose era or legacy was considered to be the golden era standing next to P. Susheela and S. Janaki. As of today Chithra is considered as one of the finest singers of the Telugu film industry whose charisma is remarkable. She sang maximum songs in Telugu to M. M. Keeravani

S. P. Venkitesh, which was not commercially released. For the 1991 Hindi film Love, composers Anand–Milind, called upon her to sing duets song along with S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and since then, Chithra has recorded for around 200 Bollywood songs.^[30]

Sunitha Upadrashta Karthik & Shweta Mohan.^{[citation needed}