NEW DELHI: Eminent singer K J Yesudas is to receive the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second highest civilian honour, while mohan veena exponent Vishwa Mohan Bhatt bags the Padma Bhushan.
Actors Sadhu Meher from Odisha and Ms Bharati Vishnuvardhan are among the Padmashri awardees. Renowned playback singers Anuradha Paudwal and Kailash Kher also get the Padmashri
Renowned commentator and journalist Cho Ramaswamy has also been chosen to get the Padma Bhushan posthumously. Film analyst Bhawna Somayya of Maharashtra, and Vishnu Pandya of Gujarat, have been awarded Padma Shri for journalism.
Cricketer Virat Kohli, gymnast Dipa Karmakar of Tripura, and wrestler Sakshi Malik of Haryana, have been chosen for Padmashri from the field of sports.
Other sportspersons getting the Padmashri from the field of sport are: blind cricketer Shekhar Naik and Vikasa Gowda (discus throw) of Karnataka, athletes Deepa Malik of Haryana and Mariyappan Thangavelu of Kerala, P R Shreejesh of Kerala for hockey. 74 year old Meenakshi Amma got the Padmashri for her excellence in Martial Art (Kalariyatuttu of Kerala). Television entrepreneur Sanjeev Kapoor received the Padmashri for his excellence in culinary art.
Others who have received awards in the field of music are Basanti Bisht of Uttarakhand, T K Murthy of Tamil Nadu, Laishram Birendrakumar Singh of Manipur, Krishna Ram Chaudhary of Uttar Pradesh, Jitendra Haripal of Odisha, Ms Parassala B Ponnammal of Kerala, Sukri Bommagowda of Karnataka, Mukund Nayak of Jharkhand, and Purushottam Upadhyay of Gujarat. Wareppa Naba Nil of Manipur gets the award for theatre.
Imrat Khan from the United States gets the award for music. H R Shah (chairman and CEO of TV Asia) is another NRI from USA who has got the Padmashri for journalism.
Chemanchery Kunhiraman Nair of Kerala and Ms Aruna Mohanty of Odisha are getting the Padmashri for dance.
These awards are conferred by the President at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March/ April every year. This year the President of India has approved conferment of Padma awards to 89 persons as per the list below. The list comprises seven Padma Vibhushan and an equal number Padma Bhushan and 75 Padmashri awardees. 19 of the awardees are women and the list also includes five persons from the category of foreigners, NRIs, PIOs and six posthumous awardees.
