General Bipin Rawat  |  Photo Credit: PTI
Key Highlights
- President Ram Nath Kovind approved conferment of 128 Padma Awards this year
- Four Padma Vibhushan, 17 Padma Bhushan and 107 Padma Shri awards have been conferred
New Delhi: As many as 128 Padma Awards were conferred on the eve of the 73rd Republic Day by President Ram Nath Kovind. Out of these, four Padma Vibhushan, 17 Padma Bhushan and 107 Padma Shri awards were conferred this year.
Former Uttar Pradesh CM Kalyan Singh, first Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, Prabha Atre (Art) and Radheyshyam Khemka (Literature & Education) were awarded the Padma Vibhushan – India’s second-highest civilian award.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress and former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) were named for the third-highest honours – Padma Bhushan.
Cyrus Poonawalla of Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech’s Krishna Ella and Suchitra Ella were awarded Padma Bhushan as well.
Other recipients of Padma Bhushan were Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, late Punjabi folk singer Gurmeet Bawa, and former Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi.
Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra and singer Sonu Nigam were awarded Padma Shri.
See complete list here:
This year, President Ram Nath Kovind approved the conferment of 128 Padma Awards including 2 duo cases in which an award is given to two entities but counted as one.
Out of them, 34 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 10 persons from the category of Foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI and 13 Posthumous awardees.
Padma Awards – one of the highest civilian Awards of the country, are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.