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Advani, Dilip Kumar, Amitabh conferred Padma Vibhushan
BJP leader L.K. Advani, spiritual leader and philanthropist Aga Khan,
actors Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan and Punjab Chief Minister
Parkash Singh Badal are among the nine named for India's second highest
civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, Sunday.
The awards,
declared on the eve of Republic Day, are the first Padma honours
announced by the Narendra Modi government which assumed office last May.
It had last month conferred the nation's highest honour - the Bharat
Ratna - on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and educationist
Madan Mohan Malaviya.
A home ministry release said that
President Pranab Mukherjee has approved conferment of Padma awards to
104 people - nine for Padma Vibhushan, 20 for Padma Bhushan and 75 for
Padma Shri.
Seventeen of the awardees are women. Four have been named for Padma awards posthumously.
Also
among the Padma Vibhushan awardees is senior nuclear scientist
M.R.Srinivasan, 84, who had negotiated on behalf of India with Russia
for supply of reactors for Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP).
"I
am happy to receive the award. It is the recognition for the people who
worked with me," said Srinivasan, who has nearly 60 years experience in
the Indian nuclear field and seen the construction of most of the
country's atomic power plants. He has been conferred the Padma Bhushan
and Padma Shri earlier.
Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill
Gates and his wife Melinda, journalists Swapan Dasgupta and Rajat
Sharma, lawyer Harish Salve, filmmaker Jahnu Barua, former chief
election commissioner N.Gopalaswami, wrestler-turned-coach Satpal, maths
"Nobel Prize" winner Manjul Bhargava and Carnatic singer Sudha
Raghunathan are among the 20 recipients of the Padma Bhushan.
Barua,
who is one of the six from the northeast to figure in the awards, told
IANS: "It makes me happy. I feel that such recognition is necessary. A
lot of good work is being done and such recognition will do good to the
region."
Economist Bibek Debroy, badminton player P.V. Sindhu,
space scientists S. Arunan - the project director for India's Mars
mission - and S.K. Shivkumar, director of the Indian Space Research
Organisation Satellite Centre and having a key role in building the deep
space network (DSN) that was used in tracking the Chandrayaan and Mars
Orbite inter-planetary satellites, are among those named for Padma Shri.
"I feel deeply honoured. All in the family are also elated. It is the recognition for the team members," Arunan told IANS.
The
list of Padma awardees includes some spiritual leaders - Swami
Rambhadracharya (Padma Vibhushan), Swami Satyamitranand Giri and
Shivakumara Swami (both Padma Bhushan) and Prtugal-based Jagat Guru
Amrta Suryananda Maha Raja (Padma Shri) were in the list. Art of Living
founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and yoga guru Ramdev had declined to
receive the awards after their names appeared in the media.
The
Padma Bhushan awardees also include former Lok Sabha secretary general
and constitutional expert Subhash C. Kashyap. While Bhargava is settled
in the US, four others in the list are foreign nationals.
Prominent
among those who have been conferred Padama Shri include Bollywood
director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, lyricist Prasoon Joshi, music director
Ravindra Jain, Gujarati writer Tarak Mehta and cartoonist Pran Kumar
Sharma or Pran (posthumously), T.V. Mohandas Pai (trade and industry),
Mithali Raj (sports) and J.S. Rajput (literature and education).
Sindhu said said she was pleasantly surprised.
"It feels really good. I am really happy to get this award. This will
further motivate me to do better and win more matches and tournaments.
My family is also very happy. I really did not expect this honour and it
comes as a very pleasant surprise," Sindhu told IANS over the phone
from Hyderabad.
Padma awards are given in various disciplines and
fields of activity such as art, social work, public affairs, science
and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education,
sports and civil service.
Padma Vibhushan is awarded for
exceptional and distinguished service; Padma Bhushan for distinguished
service of high order and Padma Shri for distinguished service in any
field.
These awards are conferred by the president at ceremonial
functions held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March/April every
year.