Republic Day: Muthuraman, Subbiah, Priya Paul among Padma awardees.

NEW DELHI: Tata Steel Vice-Chairman B Muthuraman, Subbiah Murugappa Vellayan of the Murugappa group and Chairperson of Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels, Priya Paul are among seven people selected for this year's Padma Awards in the trade and industry category. While Muthuraman and Subbiah have been selected for the Padma Bhushan, Paul along with Piramal Healthcare Director Swati Piramal, Kinetic Group Chairman Arun Hastimal Firodia have been selected for the Padma Shri awards.

Shoji Shiba, an international expert in TQM and Breakthrough Management and Gopinath Pillai, a finance, industry and trading expert too have been selected for Padma Shri under the foreign category.

Muthuraman, also the president of industry body CII, is a B.Tech in Metallurgical Engineering from IIT Madras and completed his MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur. He had joined Tata Steel in 1966 as a graduate trainee.

Vellayan Subbiah, the former Chairman of the Chennai- based USD 3.8 billion the Murugappa group was also the past president of CII. He is also an alumni of Harvard Business School.

Priya Paul, kin of UK-based industrialist Lord Swraj Paul, is an economics graduate from the US. She is also president of Hotel Association of India (HAI) and a founder Member of World Travel Tourism Council - Asia Chapter (WTTC). She is also member of the Advisory Board of Directors, IIM Lucknow.

Swati Piramal, along with her husband Ajay Piramal, brought a fledgling company Nicholas Laboratories, whose turnover was just Rs 11 crore in 1988, to the level of an Indian multinational, having operations in the US, Europe and India and selling products to over 100 countries. She was also president of industry body Assocham.

Arun H Firodia is the chairman of the Kinetic Group. He developed, India's first totally indigenous moped - 'Luna' , which became an instant hit with the consumers in the 70's and 80's.

Shoji Shiba is currently Professor Emeritus, University of Tsukuba, Japan, Advisory Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and Distinguished Honorary Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.