Padma Awards

The President of India has approved the names of the 135 persons for conferment of the Padma Awards-2008. The list has 13 Padma Vibhushan awardees, 35 Padma Bhushan and 71 Padma Shri winners.The Padma Vibhushan winners are Asha Bhosle (Art), Justice (Dr.) A.S Anand, PN Dhar, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee (all three for public affairs), Dr E Sreedharan, and Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri for science and engineering, Late Mr Edmund Hillary (Posthumous), Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, Viswanathan Anand (all three for sports), Lakshmi Narayan Mittal, N R Narayana Murthy, PRS Oberoi, Ratan Naval Tata (all four for trade and industry).The list of Padma Bhushan awardees has five from the field of art. These are Amarnath Sehgal (Posthumous), Ustad Asad Ali Khan, P Susheela, Ustad Rahim Fahimuddin Dagar and Prof. Sushil Kumar Saxena. For civil service the awardees are Chandrshekhar Dasgupta, K Padmanabhiah and V Ramachandran.There are nine winners in the field of Literature and Education. These are Prof Brijinder Nath Goswamy, Prof Ji Xianlin (China), Prof Kaushik Basu (USA), Prof. (Smt.) Padma Desai (USA), Ravindra Kelekar, Dr (Smt.) Shayama Chona, Shri Lal Shukla, Dr Srinivasa SR Varadhan, Prof TK Oommen and Prof (Dr) Jagjit Singh Chopra. Prof Nirmal Kumar Ganguly has got it for medicine while Mian Bashir Ahmed, Lord Meghnad Desai, Late Yuli Mikhailovitch Vorontsov (Posthumous) have got Padma Bhushan for public affairs. Prof Asis Datta, Prof. Sukh Dev have got it for science and engineering.Indian born astronaut Sunita Williams has got it for astronautics.Vasant Gowarikar, DR Mehta, Dominique Lapierre (France), Dr (Ms.) Inderjit Kaur have got it for social work. Suresh Kumar Neotia, Baba Neelkanth Kalyani, K. V. Kamath, Shiv Nadar and Vikram Pandit have got it for Trade and Industry.The Padma Shri award list has 71 names. The list consists of Gangadhar Pradhan, Mikhailovich Pechinkov (Russia), Pandit Gokulotsavji Maharaj, Hans Raj Hans, Dr.(Smt.) Helen Giri, Jatin Goswami, Jawahar Wattal, John Martin Nelson, Jonnalagadda Gurappa Chetty, Kekoo M. Gandhy, Madhuri Dixit, Mangala Prasad Mohanty, Manoj Night Shyamalan, Meenakshi Chitharanjan, Moozhikkulam Kochukuttan Chakyar, P.K. Narayanan Nambiar, Pratap Pawar (UK), Sabitri Heisnam, Sentila T. Yanger, Dr. Sirkazhi G. Sivachidambaram, Tom Alter and Prof. Yella Venkateswara Rao have got it for Art.Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Dilip Sardesai and Vinod Dua have got it for Journalism.
Prof. Amitabh Mattoo, Balasubramanian Sivanthi Adithan, Bholabhai Patel, Dr. (Smt.) Bina Agarwal, Prof. (Dr.) K.S. Nisar Ahmed, Dr. (Smt.) M. Leelavathy, Dr. Nirupam Bajpai, Dr. Srinivas Udgata, Prof. Sukhadeo Thorat, Shri Surjya Kanta Hazarika, Dr. Vellayani Arjunan and Mohammad Yousuf Taing have won it for Literature and Education.Haji Kaleem Ullah Khan has got Padma Shri for Mango Plantation and Grafting.Dr. A. Jayanta Kumar Singh, Prof. (Dr.) Arjunan Rajasekaran, Prof. (Dr.) C.U. Velmurugendran, Dr. Deepak Sehgal, Prof. (Dr.) Dinesh K. Bhargava, Dr. Indu Bhushan Sinha, Dr. Keiki R. Mehta, Dr. (Smt.) Malvika Sabharwal, Dr. Mohan Chandra Pant, Dr. Rakesh Kumar Jain, Dr. Raman Kapur, Dr. Randhir Sud, Dr. Shyam Narayan Arya, Prof. (Dr.) Surendra Singh Yadav, Dr. Tatyarao Pundlikrao Lahane and Dr. Tony Fernandez have got it for medicine.Colette Mathur has got it for public affairs. She is from Switzerland.Bhavarlal Hiralal Jain, Dr. Joseph H. Hulse (Canada), Prof Kasturi Lal Chopra, Dr. Sant Singh Virmani (USA) have got it for science and engineering. Kailash Chandra Agrawal, Sister Karuna Mary Braganza, Dr. (Smt.) Kshama Metre, Dr. Kutikuppala Surya Rao, Madan Mohan Sabharwal, Dr. (Ms.) Sheela Barthakur, V.R. Gowrishankar, Vikramjit Singh Sahney and Yousaf Ali Musaliamveettil Abdul Kader of UAE have been awarded the Padma Shri for social work.Baichung Bhutia and Bula Chowdhury Chakraborty have got it for sports.Dr. Amit Mitra has got it for trade and industry.The government has once again skipped conferring the Bharat Ratna for the seventh time in a row. The last time it was given was in 2001 when it was conferred filmdom's golden voice Lata Mangeshkar and Shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan. Apart from Sreedharan, honours list includes educationist Shyama Chona, Prof Asis Datta, journalists Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt and Vinod Dua have been honoured. Veteran commentator Jasdev Singh, retired IAS officer and government's interlocutor in the Naga peace process K Padmanabhaiah, US astronaut of Indian origin Sunita Williams and French co-author of "City of Joy" and social activist Dominique Lapierre are among those awarded Padma Bhushan for their contributions. Noted sociologist T K Oomen has been awarded a Padma Shri. Apart from Madhuri Dixit, veteran actor and theatre personality Tom Alter has been given a Padma Shri. In 2007, 121 Padma awards were announced — of these, 10 Padma Vibhushans, 32 Padma Bhushans and 79 Padma Shris.