Names for the nation’s highest civilian awards were announced on Tuesday, the eve of India’s 73rd Republic Day. The list of Padma awardees has 130 names on it this year which includes 2 shared awards. It has four Padma Vibushan, 17 Padma Bhushan, and 107 Padma Shri Awardees. 34 awardees are women in this year’s list. There were no names announced for the Bharat Ratna award which is the Highest Civilian Award of India. Bharat Ratna was last awarded to former President Pranab Mukherjee, social reformer Nanaji Deshmukh, and singer Bhupen Hazarika in 2019.
The list includes General Bipin Rawat who was India’s Chief of Defence Staff to be killed last year during a helicopter crash, Opposition politicians such as Ghulam Nabi Azad, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Vaccine makers Krishna Ella, Suchitra Ella, Cyrus Poonawalla, and the Indian-origin titans of Silicon Valley including Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai.
General Bipin along with Kalyan Singh (Chief Minister of UP when the Babri Masjid demolition took place) has been awarded India’s second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan. Ghulam Nabi Azad (Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir from Congress Party) and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (Former Chief Minister of West Bengal from the Communist Party of India [Marxist] ) were honoured with the third-highest award of the nation, the Padma Bhushan. But Bhattacharjee who is a critic of the current Prime Minister has rejected the award in a very rare event.
Vaccine makers from Bharat Biotech namely Krishna Ella and Suchitra Ella along with Cyrus Poonawalla from the Serum Institute of India have been named for the Padma Bhushan to honour their contributions towards the development of two vaccines ‘Covaxin’ and ‘Covishield’ as part of India’s role against Covid-19.
The CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella and CEO of Google Sundar Pichai along with the chairperson of Tata Group, Natarajan Chandrasekaran were also listed for Padma Bhushan. Some other awardees for the Padma Bhushan include Madhur Jaffrey, the US-based culinary expert, Devendra Jhajharia (javelin thrower), and a religious teacher hailing from Gujarat, Swami Sachidanand.
People named for the nation’s fourth-highest civilian honour include Singer Sonu Nigam and the Olympic gold medal winner Neeraj Chopra along with the Vice-Chancellor of Jamila Millia Islamia University, Najma Akhtar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the winners via Twitter and said that the entire nation cherishes their accomplishments and they have made India proud with their contributions to society.
