BJP veteran and former deputy prime minister L K Advani, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, senior actors Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan and leader of Ismaili sect of Muslims Karim Al Hussaini Aga Khan have been awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour after the Bharat Ratna. The Padma Bhushan awardees include Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates, who have donated billions so far towards healthcare in India.
The 2015 list features Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Srinivasan of Tulsi Peeth, Shivakumara Swami of Siddaganga Mutta in Tumkur, Swami Satyamitranand Giri who founded the Bharat Mata Mandir in Haridwar and Portugal-based yoga guru Jagat Guru Arta Suyananda Maha Raja. The list of "spiritual gurus" would have been longer but for the refusal of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Baba Ramdev to accept the Padma Vibhushan honour.
Of the 104 Padma award winners announced on Republic Day eve, nine were conferred the Padma Vibhushan, 20 bagged the Padma Bhushan and 75, Padma Shri. The list includes 17 women, with the highlight being the presence of four women among the total six awardees in sports category. Also, in a record of sorts, there are 17 awardees in the category of foreigners, NRIs and PIOs. Among the prominent foreigners conferred the Padma Bhushan are Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's Japanese associate Saichiro Misumi, whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met in Tokyo last year, and US-based Sanskrit scholar David Frawley, who is also known as Vamadeva.
The Padma Vibhushan awardees include Dr Veerjendra Heggade of Karnataka (for social work), Prof Malur Ramasamy Srinivasan of Tamil Nadu (science & engineering) and legal luminary K K Venugopal (public affairs).
The Padma Bhushan list features former Solicitor General Harish Salve, constitutional expert Subhash C Kashyap and former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami. Celebrated Assamese film maker Jahnu Barua, journalists Rajat Sharma and Swapan Dasgupta, Hindustani classical vocalist Pandit Gokulotsavji Maharaj, Carnatic vocalist Sudha Ragunathan, wrestling coach Satpal and geologist Kharag Singh Valdiya have also been conferred the country's third highest civilian award. Indian-origin mathematician Manjul Bhargava too is in the list.
The sports category features four women including badminton champion P V Sindhu, Indian women's cricket team Mithali Raj, hockey player Saba Anjum and the first female amputee to climb Mt Everest Arunima Singh. Wrestling coach Satpal and Indian hockey team captain Sardara Singh are the only two male Padma awardees in the sports category.
The Padma winners for science/medicine are computer scientist Vijay Bhatkar, cardiologist Ashok Seth, pulmonary medicine specialist Randeep Guleria, Dr Ambrish Mithal of Medanta (all Padma Bhushan); and DRDO's Dr N Prabhakar and Dr Prahlada.
Among the 75 Padma Shri winners are the late spiritual head of the Bohra Muslims Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin, economist and Niti Aayog member Bibek Debroy; cartoonist Pran (posthumous), filmmakers Sanjay Leela Bhansali, music composer Ravindra Jain, adman Prasoon Joshi, former NCERT chairman J S Rajput, industrialist T V Mohandas Pai and Gujarati columnist Tarak Mehta.
Among the foreigners awarded the Padma Shri this year are Chinese Indologist Huang Baosheng, French scientist Jacques Blamont, French novelist Jean-Claude Carriere, and professor of Tamil language at University of California, Berkeley, George L Hart; and German Indologist Annette Schmiedchen. The NRI/PIO in the Padma Shri category are Indian-American economist Nandrajan "Raj" Chetty, Indian classical vocalist Tripti Mukherjee, besides Dr Dattatreyudu Nori, Dr Raghu Rama Pillarisetti and Dr Saumitra Rawat in the field of medicine.
List of Padma awardees
Following is the list of the 104 persons conferred Padma awards. These include nine Padma Vibhushan, 20 Padma Bhushan and 75 Padma Shri awardees.
Padma Vibhushan
LK Advani (Public Affairs), Gujarat; Amitabh Bachchan (Art), Maharashtra; Prakash Singh Badal (Public Affairs), Punjab; Dr D Veerendra Heggade (Social Work), Karnataka; Dilip Kumar (Art), Maharashtra; Jagadguru Rambhadracharya (Others), Uttar Pradesh; Prof Malur Ramaswamy Srinivasan (Science and Engg), Tamil Nadu; Kottayan K Venugopal (Public Affairs), Delhi; Karim Al Hussaini Aga Khan (Trade and Industry), France/UK
Padma Bhushan
Jahnu Barua (Art), Assam; Dr Vijay Bhatkar (Science and Engineering), Maharashtra; Swapan Dasgupta (Literature and Education), Delhi; Swami Satyamitranand Giri (Others), Uttar Pradesh; N Gopalaswami (Civil Service), Tamil Nadu; Dr Subhash C Kashyap (Public Affairs), Delhi; Dr (Pandit) Gokulotsavji Maharaj (Art), Madhya Pradesh; Dr Ambrish Mithal (Medicine), Delhi; Sudha Ragunathan (Art), Tamil Nadu; Harish Salve (Public Affairs), Delhi; Dr Ashok Seth (Medicine), Delhi; Rajat Sharma (Literature and Education), Delhi; Satpal (Sports), Delhi; Shivakumara Swami (Others), Karnataka; Dr Kharag Singh Valdiya (Science and Engg), Karnataka; Prof Manjul Bhargava (Science and Engg), USA; David Frawley (Others), USA; Bill Gates (Social Work), USA; Melinda Gates (Social Work), USA; Saichiro Misumi (Others), Japan.
Padma Shri
Dr Manjula Anagani (Medicine), Telangana; S Arunan (Science and Engineering), Karnataka;
Kanyakumari Avasarala (Art), Tamil Nadu; Dr Bettina Sharada Baumer (Literature and Education), Jammu and Kashmir; Naresh Bedi (Art), Delhi; Ashok Bhagat (Social Work), Jharkhand; Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Art), Maharashtra; Dr Lakshmi Nandan Bora (Literature and Education), Assam;
Dr Gyan Chaturvedi (Literature and Education), Madhya Pradesh; Prof (Dr) Yogesh Kumar Chawla (Medicine), Chandigarh; Jayakumari Chikkala (Medicine), Delhi; Bibek Debroy (Literature and Education), Delhi; Dr Sarungbam Bimola Kumari Devi (Medicine), Manipur; Dr Ashok Gulati (Public Affairs), Delhi; Dr Randeep Guleria (Medicine), Delhi; Dr KP Haridas (Medicine), Kerala;
Rahul Jain (Art), Delhi; Ravindra Jain (Art), Maharashtra; Dr Sunil Jogi (Literature and Education), Delhi; Prasoon Joshi (Art), Maharashtra; Dr Prafulla Kar (Art), Odisha; Saba Anjum (Sports), Chhattisgarh.
Ushakiran Khan (Literature and Education), Bihar; Dr Rajesh Kotecha (Medicine), Rajasthan; Prof Alka Kriplani (Medicine), Delhi; Dr Harsh Kumar (Medicine), Delhi; Narayana Purushothama Mallaya (Literature & Education), Kerala; Lambert Mascarenhas (Literature and Education), Goa; Dr Janak Palta McGilligan (Social Work), Madhya Pradesh; Veerendra Raj Mehta (Social Work), Delhi; Taarak Mehta (Art), Gujarat; Neil Herbert Nongkynrih (Art), Meghalaya;
Chewang Norphel (Others), Jammu and Kashmir, TV Mohandas Pai (Trade and Industry), Karnataka; Dr Tejas Patel (Medicine), Gujarat; Jadav Molai Peyang (Others), Assam; Bimla Poddar (Others), Uttar Pradesh; Dr N Prabhakar (Science and Engg), Delhi; Dr Prahalada (Science and Engg), Maharashtra; Dr Narendra Prasad (Medicine), Bihar; Ram Bahadur Rai (Literature and Education), Delhi; Mithali Raj (Sports), Telangana; PV Rajaraman (Civil Service), Tamil Nadu; Prof JS Rajput (Literature and Education), Uttar Pradesh.
Kota Srinivasa Rao (Art), Andhra Pradesh; Prof Bimal Roy (Literature and Education), West Bengal; Shekhar Sen (Art), Maharashtra; Gunvant Shah (Literature and Education), Gujarat;
Brahmdev Sharma (Literature and Education), Delhi; Manu Sharma (Literature and Education), Uttar Pradesh; Prof Yog Raj Sharma (Medicine), Delhi; Vasant Shastri (Science and Engg), Karnataka; SK Shivkumar (Science and Engg), Karnataka; PV Sindhu (Sports), Telangana; Sardara Singh (Sports), Haryana; Arunima Sinha (Sports), Uttar Pradesh; Mahesh Raj Soni (Art), Rajasthan;
Dr Nikhil Tandon (Medicine), Delhi; H Thegtse Rinpoche (Social Work), Arunachal Pradesh;
Dr Hargovind Laxmishanker Trivedi (Medicine), Gujarat; Huang Baosheng (Others), China;
Prof Jacques Blamont (Science and Engg), France; Late Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin (Others), Maharashtra (Posthumous); Jean-Claude Carriere (Literature and Education), France; Dr Nandrajan 'Raj' Chetty (Literature and Education), France; George L Hart (Others), USA; Jagat Guru Amrta Suryananda Maha Raja (Others), Portugal; Late Meetha Lal Mehta (Social Work), Rajasthan (Posthumous); Tripti Mukherjee (Art), USA; Dr Dattatreyudu Nori (Medicine), USA; Dr Raghu Rama Pillarisetti (Medicine), USA; Dr Saumitra Rawat (Medicine), UK; Prof Annette Schmiedchen (Literature and Education), Germany; Late Pran Kumar Sharma alias Pran (Art), Delhi (Posthumous); Late R Vasudevan (Civil Service), Tamil Nadu (Posthumous).
