Lalded award, Srinagar (1979) Senior fellowship Ministry of culture, govt.

Avtar Krishan Raina was born in 1938 into a Kashmiri Pandit family in Srinagar, Kashmir.

At the age of 16, he dropped out of college in Kashmir to join School of Arts, Trivandrum, in Kerala.

Raina was forced to leave Kashmir in 1990 during the Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, and his house in Harwan, Srinagar was burnt down.

An article in The Tribune (Chandigarh) in 2005 said: "There is an element of poignancy in his paintings as they also in a subtle way point out how he misses his homeland, which he was forced to leave due to the strife there.