Padma awards honour best of India

New Delhi, Jan 26: Noted Indian physicist Yash Pal and space scientist Roddam Narasimha were on Friday chosen for this year's India's second highest civilian honour of Padma Vibhushan while yesteryear Bollywood stars late Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore and Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid were selected for Padma Bhushan.

Renowned sculptor Raghunath Mohapatra and painter S Haider Raza were chosen for Padma Vibhushan as government came out with a list of 108 Padma awardees that included actress Sridevi, actors Nana Patekar and Malayalam star Madhu of Chemmeen fame and Olympians Mary Kom, Yogeshwar Dutt and Vijay Kumar.

In all four personalities were awarded Padma Vibhushan, 24 for Padma Bhushan and 80 Padma Shri. Of the awardees 24 are women, 11 belong to the category of foreigners, NRI, PIOs and posthumous.

Nobody was named for Bharat Ratna for this year too. The last awardee was late Bhimsen Joshi in 2008.

Indian Satirist Jaspal Bhatti, who died in a road accident last year, film maker D Rama Naidu, noted South Indian playback singer S Janaki, Bharatnatyam dancer Saroja Vaidyanathan, missile scientist Dr A Sivathanu Pillai of BrahMos programme, Industrialist Adi Godrej and R Tyagarajan, former bureaucrat M K Bhan were among the 24 Padma Bhushan awardees.

Among the Padma Shri awardees are Ms B Jayashree (art) from Karnataka, film Director of Sholay fame Ramesh Sippy, noted Photo journalist Pablo Bartholomew, late Manju Bharat Ram (social work), Vandana Luthra (trade and commerce) and fashion designer Ritu Kumar.

Theatre artists from Jammu and Kashmir Balwant Thakur and Rajendra Tikku and Ghulam Mohammed Saznawaz were chosen for Padma Shri.

Noted Oncologist Pramod Kumar Julka, eminent entrepreneur from Coimbatore Rajshree Pathy, noted Urdu Poet Nida Fazli, anthropologist and art historian from the US Christopher Pinney, Urdu poet Salik Lakhnawi, who died early this month, were awarded Padma Shri.

Chairperson of Centrefor Linguistics of JNU Anvita Abbi, Sanskrit writer Rama Kant Shukla, Department of Theoretical Physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mustansir Barma were among the Padma Shri awardees.

PTI