Govt announces Padma awards 2019

Five eminent persons from Karnataka, including scientist Rohini Godbole and dancer-actor Prabhu Deva, were among 113 people were chosen for the Padma awards on the eve of Republic Day.

While four were chosen for the second highest civilian award Padma Vibhushan, 14 were chosen for Padma Bhushan and the rest 94 for Padma Shri.

Folk singer from Chhattisgarh Teejan Bai, Djibouti national Ismail Omar Guellah, industrialist Anilkumar Manibhai Naik and theatre artiste B M Purandare were chosen for Padma Vibhushan while late veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar, who was a board member at the Printers Mysore (Pvt) Ltd, publishers of Deccan Herald, was among the Padma Bhushan winners.

From Karnataka, all won the Padma Shri. Besides Godbole and Prabhu Deva, who was born in Mysuru, the winners also included archaeologist Sharada Srinivasan, Sarod player Rajeev Tharanath and environmentalist Saalumarada Thimmakka.

Godbole, who is chosen for her work in 'science and technology-nuclear', is an honorary professor at the Centre for High Energy Physics in the Indian Institute of Science while Prabhu Deva has mesmerised cinema-goers with his dancing skills. Taranath is a disciple of Ali Akbar Khan.

Thimmakka is known for her work in planting and tending to 385 banyan trees along a four-kilometre stretch of highway between Hulikal and Kudur. Srinivasan has made pioneering contributions to the study of archaeology and history of art from the perspective of exploring engineering applications in these disciplines.

Among the Padma Bhushan winners were BJP MPs Kariya Munda and Hukumdev Narayan Yadav. Akali Dal Rajya Sabha MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa also finds his name in the list of 14 Padma Bhushan winners, which also included Malayalam superstar Mohanlal and scientist Nambi Narayanan, who was falsely implicated in ISRO spy case.

In Kerala, there were speculation that BJP was planning to field Mohanlal and Nambi Narayanan in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Another interesting winner is Gita Mehta, the daughter of late Biju Patnaik and sister of BJD supremo and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Mehta, a US citizen known for her fiction and non-fiction writings as well as her television documentaries for UK, European and US networks, has been chosen for the Padma Shri in the literature and education section.

Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, was also chosen for Padma Bhushan.

The Padma Shri winners from other states included actor Manoj Bajpayee, cricketer Gautam Gambir, ace doctor Sandeep Guleria, former Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and theatre artiste Waman Kendre among others. Actor Kader Khan, who passed away recently, was awarded Padma Shri posthumously.

Footballer Sunil Chhetri, singer Shankar Mahadevan anti-Sikh riots lawyer H S Phoolka were also among the Padma Shri winners.