Posthumous honour for Miranda, Hazarika

Cartoonist Mario de Miranda and Assamese singer-musician Bhupen Hazarika have been posthumously awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second highest civil honour after Bharat Ratna.

The government did not nominate anyone for Bharat Ratna this year. K G Subramanyan for art and culture from West Bengal, Dr Kantimal Sacheti for Orthopaedics from Maharashtra and T V Rajeswar for civil service from Delhi will also receive Padma Vibhushan this year.

The President has approved 109 awards, 14 of which have been given to foreign nationals. These include five Padma Vibhushan, 27 Padma Bhushan and 77 Padma Shri awards.

Nineteen of the awardees are women, including actress and former Rajya Sabha member Shabana Azami. Shabana gets Padma Bhushan.
The “He-Man” of Bollywood and former Lok Sabha member from Bikaner Dharmendra and film director Mira Nair of “Salaam Bombay” fame have been given Padma Bhushan.

Other Padma Bhushan awardees include N Vittal, former Central Vigilance Commissioner (civil services -Kerala), former ambassador to the USA Ronen Sen (civil services-West Bengal),  Khaled Choudhury (theatre-West Bengal), Jatin Das (painting Delhi),  Pandit Buddhadev Das Gupta (sarod player-West Bengal),  Dr Trippunithwra Viswanathan Gopalkrishnan (classical vocal and instrumental music-Tamil Nadu),  M S Gopalakrishnan (violinist -Tamil Nadu), Anish Kapoor (sculpture-UK) and Satya Narayan Goenka (social worker-Maharashtra).

Sen had created a storm in Parliament by describing MPs as “headless chickens” during a running controversy on the ratification of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal in 2007. The award is not surprising as Sen has always been close to the UPA establishment.