India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh were posthumously awarded Padma Vibhushan in the civilian honours announced by the government on the eve of 73rd Republic Day.
The list of 128 Padma awardees includes Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Bharat Biotech Chairman Krishna Ella and co-founder Suchitra Ella, Serum Institute of India Managing Director Cyrus Poonawalla and Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra, singer Sonu Nigam, late Punjabi folk singer Gurmeet Bawa, former Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation Satya Nadella and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. General Rawat was headed to Defence Services Staff College in Wellington to address the faculty and student officers of the Staff Course when his chopper crashed in Tamil Nadu in December last. He was India’s longest-serving four-star General.
The other Padma Vibushan awardees are late Radheyshyam Khemka (Literature and Education) and Prabha Atre (Art).
There are 17 Padma Bhushan awardees and 107 Padma Shri awardees across various disciplines.
The Padma Bhushan awardees are: Ghulam Nabi Azad, actor Victor Banerjee, Punjabi singer Gurmeet Bawa, former Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Krishna Ella and Suchitra Ella of Bharat Biotech, Madhur Jaffery, Devendra Jhajharia, Rashid Khan, Rajiv Mehrishi, Satya Narayana Nadella, Sundararajan Pichai, Cyrus Poonawalla, Sanjaya Rajaram (posthumous), Pratibha Ray, Swami Sachidanand and Vashishth Tripathi.
Neeraj Chopra, who won a gold medal in Javelin in Tokyo Olympics last year, will be conferred Padma Shri. Singer Sonu Nigam will also be conferred with a Padma Shri.
Thirty-four of the awardees are women and the list also includes 10 persons from the category of foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI. There are 13 posthumous awardees.
In the category of “art” veteran actors Victor Banerjee, Sowcar Janaki and filmmaker Chandraprakash Dwivedi have been honoured for their stellar work. Victor was honoured with the Padma Bhushan award for his work spanning almost five decades. He has won a National Award for his performance in Satyajit Ray’s Ghare Baire. Sowcar, who will be awarded the Padma Shri, has acted in over 450 films across languages like Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu. Her work includes films like, Panam Padaithavan and Thaikku Thalaimagan, among others. Chandraprakash, best known for directing the 1991 series, Chanakya, was also among the Padma Shri winners. His other works include Mohalla Assi, Pinjar and Z Plus. He is also directing Akshay Kumar’s upcoming film Prithviraj.
In the category of sports, apart from Olympics gold medallist Neeraj Chopra, Vandana Kataria, who was part of the Indian women’s hockey team which finished fourth in the Tokyo Olympics will also be conferred with the Padma Shri. Brahmanand Sankhwalkar who is a former Indian footballer and a captain will also get the Padma Shri.
However, former Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee refused the Padma Bhushan award. Bhattacharjee is a former member of CPI-M politburo. “I don’t know anything about Padman Bhusan award, none has said anything about it. If I have been given Padma Bhushan I refuse to accept it,” Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said on the Padma Bhushan announcement, according to a tweet by CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury.