Mukherjee, Tendulkar, Bhosle awarded Padma Vibhushan

New Delhi, May 5 : President Pratibha Devisingh Patil on Monday conferred External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, cricket star Sachin Tendulkar and playback singer Asha Bhosle with the Padma Vibhushan award for their outstanding contribution in their respective fields.

Infosys chief mentor N R Narayan Murthy and renowned hotelier P R S Oberoi were also conferred with the award.

Sir Edmund Hillary was conferred the Padma Vibhushan posthumously.

Noted author Dominique Lapierre, teacher Shyama Chona and classical musician Ustad Rahim Fahimuddin Khan Dagar received the Padma Bhushan while FICCI Secretary General Amit Mitra, sports person Bula Chowdhury and journalists Vinod Dua and Rajdeep Sardesai were presented with the Padma Shri.

Mukherjee is the first ever serving Cabinet Minister to get a Padma award.

Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and other cabinet Ministers were present on the occasion.

Molecular biologist Asis Dutta, Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, former Ambassador Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, social activist Devendra Raj Mehta and renowned neurophysician Jagjit Singh Chopra were some of the other recipients of the Padma Bhushan.

Among the other awardees were Arjunan Rajasekaran, B Shivanthi Adityan, Bhavarlal Hiralal Jain, Bina Agrawal, Deepak Sehgal, John Martin Nelson, Prof M Leelavathy, Mangala Prasad Mohanty and Raman Kapur.

Vikramjit Singh Sahney, Surendra Singh Yadav, Srinivas Adgata, Randhir Sud, Yusuf Ali MA, Simon Tony Fernandes and Pandit Pratap Pawar were among the other recipients.

ANI