Prez gives away Padma awards

President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday felicitated several eminent personalities, including Karnataka’s internationally renowned expert on fluid dynamics Roddam Narasimha, industrialist Adi Godrej, Olympic medal winners Yogeshwar Dutt and Vijay Kumar, and actor Nana Patekar.

Narasimha and famous painter Sayed Haider Raza were conferred the prestigious Padma Vibhushan at an impressive ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The Padma Bhushan awardees include Professor Satya Nadham Atluri, aerospace expert; Dr Maharaj Kishan Bhan, leading biomedical researcher; industrialist Adi Godrej; and classical singer Ustad Abdul Rashid Khan.

Dr Nandkishore Shamrao Laud, pioneer in joint replacement surgery; Marathi poet and editor Mangesh Padgaonkar; renowned scientists Dr A S Pillai and Dr B N Suresh; and Bharatnatyam dancer Dr Saroja Vaidyanathan were also given Padma Bhushan.
Social satirist Jaspal Singh Bhatti and actor Rajesh Khanna were given Padma Bhushan posthumously. Khanna’s wife, Dimple Kapadi, received the award on his behalf.

Boxer M C Mary Kom, bronze medal winner at the London Olympics, and Jogesh Chandra Pati, Professor of Physics, both Padma Bhushan winners, could not attend the ceremony.

Among the Padma Shri awardees were actor Nana Patekar and film-maker Ramesh Sippy; Yogeshwar Dutt, who won a bronze in wrestling at the London Olympics and shooter Vijay Kumar, who won silver medal; as well as designer Ritu Kumar.

Manindra Agrawal, inventor of an algorithm to test prime numbers; Premlata Agrawal, eminent mountaineer and oldest Indian woman to climb Mount Everest at 48; S Shakir Ali, eminent artist engaged in miniature painting; theoretical physicist Mustansir Barma; cinematographer Apurba Kishore Bir were honoured with Padma Shri.

Mukherjee also conferred Padma Shri on Ghanakanta Bora Borbayan, eminent exponent of Sattriya dance, a classical dance tradition of Assam; Jharna Dhara Chowdhury, Secretary, Gandhi Ashram Trust of Bangladesh; K C Chunekar, Ayurveda expert; Purna Chandra Das, Baul music exponent; Nida Fazli, Urdu poet and lyricist; and H N Girisha, renowned paralympian.

Scientist J Gowrishankar; Homoeopathy physician Vishwa Kumar Gupta; cancer treatment pioneer Prof Pramod Kumar Julka; pioneer of residue research in radiolabelled compounds Sharad Pandurang Kale; Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce Chief Milind Prahlad Kamble were also given Padma Shri.

The other awardees include public health expert Gulshan Rai Khatri; Lepcha music expert Hildamit Lepcha; Mizo writer J Malsawma; cardiologist Ganesh Kumar Mani; GI endoscopy expert Amit Prabhakar Maydeo; singer Sudha Malhotra Motwane; social activist Reema Nanavaty; eye specialist Sundaram Natarajan; and journalist-author Devendra Patel.

Anthropology professor Christopher Pinney, Dalit entrepreneur Kalpana Saroj, Sufi musician Ustad Ghulam Saznawaz, educationist and litterateur Jagdish Prasad Singh, Indian Council for Cultural Relations Director Balwant Thakur and Department of Biotechnology  Secretary  Krishnaswamy Vijayraghavan, too, received their Padma Shri awards from Mukherjee.