Padma Awards: Kangana Ranaut, Mary Kom, Arun Jaitley Among Winners

Former union ministers Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj were given the Padma Vibhushan award posthumously.

Ahead of the 71st Republic Day, President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday, 25 January, announced the names of Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan and Padma Shri awardees for 2020.

Eminent personalities, including former Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and George Fernandes, Olympian boxer Mary Kom, former Mauritius prime minister Anerood Jugnauth have been honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, officials said on Saturday.

Here is the full list of Padma awardees:

Padma Awardee List 2020 by The Quint on Scribd

Former defence minister Manohar Parrikar, industrialists Anand Mahindra and Venu Srinivasan, Olympian badminton player PV Sindhu, former Nagaland chief minister SC Jamir and Jammu and Kashmir politician Muzaffar Hussain Baig have been awarded with the Padma Bhushan, they said.

The awards are given in various disciplines – art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc.

‘Padma Vibhushan’ is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; ‘Padma Bhushan’ for distinguished service of high order and ‘Padma Shri’ for distinguished service in any field. The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year.

Jaitley, Swaraj, Fernandes and Parrikar have been given the award posthumously, the officials said.

The Padma Vibhushan for this year has been awarded to a total of seven prominent personalities, while 16 have been given the Padma Bhushan, and 118 have been given the Padma Shri on the 71st Republic Day this year, they said.

Agriculturalists, Doctors and Social Workers Among Padma Shri Winners

Twelve of the Padma Shri awardees are social workers from different states like Popatrao Pawar from Maharashtra for ecological conservation, Usha Chaumar from Rajasthan for her fight against the practice of manual scavenging, Abdul Jabbar from Madhya Pradesh for fighting for rehabilitation of Bhopal Gas Tragedy and others.

Four of the recipients are from the medical sector.

Arunoday Mondal has been recognised for making healthcare accessible and available to the remote villages of Sundarban. Kasha Konwar Sarma from Guwahati, a veterinarian is also been given this prestigious award for his conservation work of Asian Elephants and his research in elephant anesthetics.

Surgical oncologist from Chennai Ravi Kanna, who quit his job and shifted to Assam in 2007 to make healthcare accessible in the Barak valley, is also one of the recipients.

Founders of Sambhav, a resource center for farmers across the country – Radha Mohan and Sabarmatee, a retired Economics professor and a conservationist – will also receive a Padma Shri for their initiatives in agriculture.

Rahibai Soma Popere, an illiterate tribal farmer from Ahmadnagar, is also on the list for her conservation of 50 acres of collective indigenous land.

Munna Master and Moozhikkal Pankajakshi will get this award for arts and culture.

Meanwhile, from the entertainment industry, Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut and TV soap director Ekta Kapoor were among the prominent winners of the Padma Shri awards.