Nobel laureate of Indian origin Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Apollo hospital chief Pratap Reddy and former RBI Governor Y.V. Reddy were on Monday chosen for the second highest civilian award Padma Vibhushan while music maestro A R Rahman and Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan have been named for Padma Bhushan.
Eminent theatre personalities Zohra Segal and Ebrahim Alkazi and noted ‘mridangam’ Carnatic artist Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman are the other three chosen for Padma Vibhushan award by the government which, in all, named 130 people, including 13 in the category of foreigners, NRIs and PIOs. 43 are Padma Bhushan and 83 are Padma Shri.
Cricketer Virendra Sehwag, Hockey national Ignace Tirkey, Formula 1 driver Narain Kartikeyan, Badminton star Saina Nehwal, Boxer Vijender Singh and Sachin Tendulkar’s ’guru’ Ramakant Achrekar have been selected for Padma Shri awards in sports category.
Among the Padma Bhushan awardees this year are noted NRI hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal, eminent neurosurgeon Satya Paul Agarwal and eminent cardiac surgeon Ramakant Panda, who performed ‘beating heart’ surgery on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year.
No one has been chosen for the Bharat Ratna award this year.
Tamil film music composer Ilaiyaraaja, who set music for Hindi films like ‘Cheeni Kum’ and ‘Paa’, Hindustan classical vocalist Pandit Chhannulal Mishra, dancer Mallika Sarabhai, former Cabinet Secretary and now now Member in the Planning Commission B.K. Chaturvedi have been chosen for Padma Bhushan along with former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary Moosa Raza and former Vice Chancellor of Goa University P.R. Dubhashi for civil service.
Noted U.S.-based journalist Farid Zakaria gets Padma Bhushan in joyrnalism category while Prof. Tan Chung and Prof. A.J. Paulraj get the award in literature and education and science and engineering respectively. Both are also from the U.S.
In the art category, Akbar Padamsee, Kumudini Lakhia, Nookala Chinna Satyanarayana, Puttaraj Gavai, Ram Kumar, Shrinivas Vinayak Khale and Ustad Sultan Khan are being conferred with the Padma Bhushan awards.
Another Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen and S K Bandyopadhyay have been named in the public affairs category of Padma Bhushan.
Among the Padma Shri award winners are Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, Oscar award winner in sound technician category Resul Pookutty, Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar, Nemai Ghosh, who had done camera work for Satyajit Ray, Arundhati Nag and Shobha Raju selected from the field of art.
Former CBI Director D.R. Karthikeyan, who headed the Special Investigation Team that probed the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and environment activist Ranjit Bhargava have been chosen for Padma Shri awards.
In the trade and industry category Venu Srinivasan of the TVS Group, Alluri Venkata Satyanarayana Raju, B Raveendran Pillai, Deepak Puri, Irshad Mirza and Kapil Mohan have been selected for Padma Shri awards.
Padma Shri is also being awarded to Anu Aga, Ayekpam Tomba Meetei, J R Ganga Ramani, Deep Joshi, Baba Sewa Singh, Sudha Kaul and Kranti Shah for their social work.
Former Union Minister Balasaheb Vikhe Patil gets Padma Bhushan for social work while Ghulam Mohammad Mir and Arun Sarma get Padma Shri in public service and literature and education category.
