President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday awarded Padma Vibhushan awards to seven eminent persons including late singer SP Balasubramanian and Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and noted archeologist B.B.Lal who headed excavation of Ayodhya. Others are famous doctor BM Hegde, spiritual leader Maulana Wahinduddin Khan, artist Sudarshan Sahoo and US based scientist late Narinder Singh Kapany.
10 persons were awarded Padma Bhushan including late Chief Ministers of Gujarat and Assam Keshubhai Patel and Tarun Gogoi and former Union Minister late Ram Vilas Paswan. Former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Nripendra Misra, former Principal Secretary of Prime Minister. Other who got Padma Bhushan are Tarlochan Singh, former Chairman of Minorties Commission, spiritual leader late Kalbe Sadiq, noted singer K.S. Chitra, Chandrasekhar Kambara, writer from Karnataka and industrialist RD Shroff.
102 persons are awarded Padma Shri. “This year the President has approved conferment of 119 Padma Awards including 1 duo case (in a duo case, the Award is counted as one) as per list below. The list comprises 7 Padma Vibhushan, 10 Padma Bhushan and 102 Padma Shri Awards. 29 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 10 persons from the category of Foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI, 16 Posthumous awardees and 1 transgender awardee,” said Government in a statement.
