Padma awards for Nooyi,Sunil Mittal

NEW DELHI: Former Chief Justice of India P N Bhagwati, eminent economist Raja Chelliah, Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi and Bharti telecom Chairman Sunil Mittal were today honoured with prestigious Padma awards along with 50 other eminent personalities from a cross-section of society.

Noted lyricist Javed Akhtar, former Supreme Court judge K T Thomas and IIM (Ahmedabad) Director Bakul Dholakia were also among those to receive the awards from President A P J Abdul Kalam at a glittering function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The recipients of the awards represented business, law and justice, journalism, art, film, science, medicine, and education.

Among the recipients was 106-year-old Hakim Syed Mohd Sharfuddin Quadri, who got Padma Bhushan for unani medicine, at the function attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and several Cabinet ministers.

The President came down from the dais to confer awards to six recipients, who were either on wheel-chairs or unable to walk properly due to old age.

Along with Bhagwati and Chelliah, eminent surgeon Balu Sankaran and renowned international physicist E C G Sudarshan were bestowed with the Padma Vibhushan awards.

Besides Nooyi, Mittal, Akhtar and Thomas, Padma Bhushan awards were presented to Kavalam Narayana Panikkar (playwright), Captain L Z Sailo (poet), Saroj Ghose (science), Shiv Kumar Sarin (Medicine), Vaidya Shriram Sharma (Medicine), Tapan Kumar Raychaudhuri (Historian) and Tyeb Mehta (artist). The Padma Shri awards were conferred on 36 outstanding personalities, including two posthumously.

They are A P Mishra (education), Amitav Ghosh (novelist), A Sivasailam (business), Astad Aderbad Deboo (dance), Atul Kumar (medicine), B Paul Thaliath (medicine), Balbir Singh (medicine), Baldev Raj (science), Pandit G N Singh (music), Rajmata Goverdan Kumari (conservation of ancient properties), K S Valdiya (geology), Lalit Pande (environment), Lama Thupten Phunstsok (education) and Mahadev Prasad Pandey (ayurveda).

Mira Salganik (history and culture), Mushirul Hasan (education), Naina Lal Kidwai (business), Narmada Gupta (medicine), P Gopinathan (handicraft), P R Thilagam (music), Pannuru Sripathy (art), Rabinder Gokaldas Ahuja (youth development), Rajinder Gupta (business), Runa Banerjee (social work), Rybakov Rostislav (history), Shanti Hiranand (music), Shekhar Pathak (history), S B Tibrewal (medicine), Sonam Lepcha (cultural music), Sudhir Kumar Sopory (science), Temsula Ao (education), T K Alex (space science), Vijai Dan Detha (literature) and Y M Pathan (education) also received the Padma Shri awards.

Devindra Rahinwal (journalism) and Ravindra Dayal (publication) were honoured posthumously