Advani, Amitabh get Padma Vibhushan, Prafulla Kar Padma Shri

Odisha Channel Bureau New Delhi, Jan 25: As the prestigious Padma Awards were announced here today, L.K.Advani and Amitabh Bachchan were among those named for Padma Vibhushan, Bill Gates and Swapan Dasgupta were among those named for Padma Bhushan and Prafulla Kar and 74 others were named for Padma Shri.According to an official release, this year the President of India approved conferment of Padma Awards to 104 persons.The list comprised of 9 Padma Vibhushan, 20 Padma Bhushan and 75 Padma Shri awardees. 17 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 17 persons from the category of foreigners, NRIs, PIOs and 4 posthumous awardees.The awards are given in various disciplines/ fields of activities, viz.– 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.These awards are conferred by the President of India at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March/April every year.Padma Vibhushan L.K.Advani, Amitabh Bachchan, Prakash Singh Badal, D.Veerendra Heggade, Mohammad Yusuf Khan, Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Swami Rambhadracharya, Malur Ramaswamy Srinivasan, Kottayan K.Venugopal, and Karim Al Hussaini Aga Khan from France.Padma BhushanJahnu Barua, Vijay Bhatkar, Swapan Dasgupta, Swami Satyamitranand Giri, N.Gopalaswami, Subhash C.Kashyap, Pandit Gokulotsavji Maharaj, Ambrish Mithal, Sudha Ragunathan, Harish Salve, Ashok Seth, Rajat Sharma, Satpal, Shivakumara Swami, Kharag Singh Valdiya, Manjul Bhargava, an NRI from USA, David Frawley (Vamadeva) from USA, Bill Gates from USA, Melinda Gates from USA, and Saichiro Misumi from Japan.Padma ShriManjula Anagani, S.Arunan, Kanyakumari Avasarala, Bettina Sharada Baumer, Naresh Bedi, Ashok Bhagat, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Lakshmi Nandan Bora, Gyan Chaturvedi, Yogesh Kumar Chawla, Jayakumari Chikkala, Bibek Debroy , Sarungbam Bimola Kumari Devi, Ashok Gulati, Randeep Guleria, K.P.Haridas, Rahul Jain, Ravindra Jain, Sunil Jogi, Prasoon Joshi, Prafulla Kar, Saba Anjum, Ushakiran Khan, Rajesh Kotecha, Alka Kriplani, Harsh Kumar, Narayana Purushothama Mallaya, Lambert Mascarenhas, Janak Palta McGilligan, Veerendra Raj Mehta, Tarak Mehta, Neil Herbert Nongkynrih, Chewang Norphel, T.V.Mohandas Pai, Tejas Patel, Jadav Molai Peyang, Bimla Poddar, N.Prabhakar, Prahalada, Narendra Prasad, Ram Bahadur Rai, Mithali Raj, P.V. Rajaraman, J.S.Rajput, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Bimal Roy, Shekhar Sen, Gunvant Shah, Brahmdev Sharma (Bhaiji), Manu Sharma, Yog Raj Sharma, Vasant Shastri, S.K.Shivkumar, P.V.Sindhu, Sardara Singh, Arunima Sinha, Mahesh Raj Soni, Nikhil Tandon, H.Thegtse Rinpoche, Hargovind Laxmishanker Trivedi, Huang Baosheng from China, Jacques Blamont from France, Late Shri Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin (Posthumous), Jean-Claude Carriere from France, Nandrajan “Raj” Chetty from USA, George L.Hart from USA, Jagat Guru Amrta Suryananda Maha Raja from Portugal, Late Meetha Lal Mehta (Posthumous), Tripti Mukherjee from USA, Dattatreyudu Nori from USA, Raghu Rama Pillarisetti from USA, Saumitra Rawat from UK, Annette Schmiedchen from Germany, Late Pran Kumar Sharma alias Pran (Posthumous), and Late R.Vasudevan (Posthumous).