M A I N   N E W S

Haryana scores over neighbours
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 25
Painter Krishan Khanna and Rajendra Singh Pawar got Haryana on the Padma Bhushan list while theatre artiste Neelam Mansingh, mountaineer Harbhajan Singh and academicians-cum-litterateurs Bhalachandre Nemade and Riyaz Punjabi got Chandigarh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, respectively, on the Padam Shri list as the country’s highest civilian awards were announced on the eve of Republic Day today.

Though none from the northern states figured on the list for the Padma Vibhushan, the highest Padma award, this year, Haryana was the only state of the region to get two Padma Bhushans.

Neelam Mansingh, a prominent theatre and art personality of the city, has been chosen for the Padma Shri Award. Daughter of late scholar Dr Man Singh Nirankari, Neelam and her troupe has not only performed all over India, but overseas also.

Harbhajan Singh, a Deputy Inspector-General in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police here, has become the only mountaineering and adventure sports activist to be chosen for Padma Shri this time. Hailing from Hoshiarpur, he joined the ITBP in 1980 and has undertaken 17 national and international mountaineering expeditions. He has participated in four expeditions to scale Mt Everest.

Interestingly, the list this year also contained the names of eight members of overseas Indian community, People of Indian Origin/Non-Resident Indians. While five of these awards have gone to the US-based Indian diaspora, the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and Singapore got one Padma Shri Award each.

Sixtyeight-year-old Sat Pal Khattar, a prominent lawyer, Indian community leader in Singapore and businessmen, is among those chosen for the Padma Shri this year. Sat Pal Khattar, who was born in Bhera in 1942 in undivided India to a sports goods salesman and his wife, grew up under difficult circumstances as his family suffered the pangs of Partition.

Sat Pal Khattar is the founder of Khattar Wong and Partners, one of the largest law firms in Singapore. He is also the chairman of the Khattar Holdings, a private investment firm that took up the Rs 1,500-crore housing project in Kolkatta a few years ago.

HP Naval pilot gets award
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 25
Commander Naveen Thapa, a Naval chopper pilot, who hails from Himachal Pradesh, has been awarded with Nao Sena Medal for gallantry. He had rescued three sailors when they were 100 km off the Mumbai coast.

Flying a sea-king chopper in poor visibility and heavy rain, Commander Thapa and his team picked up the sailors who had been washed away by a freak wave.

The adverse weather conditions posed multiple challenges, the first to fly and safely navigate through the turbulent conditions, the second to locate the survivors in poor visibility and lastly to wince up the trio in a strong swell and waves all around the survivors. Petty Officer Bijender, who had lowered into the water, has also been awarded Nao Sena Medal (Gallantry).

Another rescue operation, this time of the IAF in J&K, has fetched a Vayu Sena Medal (Gallantary) for Wg Cmdr Sushil Chaturvedi. He was called in to save the life of a J&K police personnel who was to be evacuated out of deep jungles of Lar in the Mahore-gulabgarh area at 9500 ft altitude.

List of Padma awardees

Padma Vibhushan

Kapila Vatsyayan (Art), Homai Vyarawalla (Art), A Nageshwara Rao (Art), Parasaran Kesava Iyengar (Public Affairs), Akhlaq-ur-Rehman Kidwai (Public Affairs), Vijay Kelkar (Public Affairs), Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Public Affairs), Palle Rama Rao (Science and Engineering), Azim Premji (Trade and Industry), Brajesh Mishra (Civil Services), Ottaplakkal N V Kurup (Literature and Education), Sitakant Mahapatra (Literature and Education), and Late LC Jain (Public Affairs).

Padma Bhushan

Satyadev Dubey (Art), M Zahur Khayyam H alias Khayyam (Music), Shashi Kapoor (Cinema), Krishen Khanna (Painting), Madavur Vasudevan Nair (Dance), Waheeda Rehman (Cinema), Rudrapatna Krishna S Srikantan (Music), Arpita Singh (Painting), SP Balasubrahmanyam (Playback singing), C V Chandrasekhar (Classical dance), Dwijen Mukherjee (Art), Rajashree Birla (Social work), Shobhana Ranade (Social work), Suryanarayanan Ramachandran (Science and Engg), S.(Kris) Gopalakrishnan (Trade and Industry), Yogesh Chander Deveshwar (Trade and Industry), Chanda Kochhar (Trade and Industry), K. Anji Reddy (Trade and Industry), Analjit Singh (Trade and Industry), Rajendra Singh Pawar (Trade and Industry), Gunapati V Krishna Reddy (Trade and Industry), Ajai Chowdhary (Trade and Industry), Surendra Singh (Civil Services), MN Buch (Civil Services), Shyam Saran (Civil Services), Thayil Jacob Sony George (Literature), Ramdas Madhava Pai (Literature), Sankha Ghosh (Literature), Late K Raghavan Thirumulpad (Medicine-Ayurveda), Late Dr Keki Byramjee Grant (Medicine) and Late Dashrath Patel (Art).

Padma Shri

Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry (Art), Makar Dhwaja Darogha (Art), Shaji Neelakantan Karun (Art), Girish Kasaravalli (Art), Tabassum H Khan alias Tabu (Cinema), Jivya Soma Mase (Art), Guru (Ms) M K Saroja Dance), Jayaram Subramaniam (Cinema), Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty (Music), Mahasundari Devi (Art), Gajam Govardhana (Art), Sunayana Hazarilal (Dance), SR Janakiraman (Carnatic vocal music), Peruvanam Kuttan Marar (Art), Kalamandalam K Pavithran (Dance), Dadi Dorab Pudumjee (Art), Khangembam Mangi Singh (Traditional music), Prahlad Singh Tipaniya (Folk music), Usha Uthup (Music), Kajol (Cinema), Irfan Khan (Cinema), Mamraj Agrawal (Social work), Jockin Arputham (Social work), Nomita Chandy (Social work), Sheela Patel (Social work), Anita Reddy (Social work), Kanubhai Hasmukhbhai Tailor (Social work), Anant Darshan Shankar (Public affairs), Prof M Annamalai (Science and Engg), Mahesh Haribhai Mehta (Science and Engg), C Narayana Rao Raghavendran (Science and Engg), Suman Sahai (Science and Engg), Prof EA Siddiq (Science and Engg), Gopalan Nair Shankar (Architecture), Mecca Rafeeque Ahmed (Trade and Industry), Kailasam Raghavendra Rao (Trade and Industry), Narayan Singh Bhati (Civil Services), PK Sen (Civil Services), Shital Mahajan (Sports Nameirakpam), Kunjarani Devi (Sports), Sushil Kumar (Sports), VVS Laxman (Sports), Gagan Narang (Sports), Krishna Poonia (Sports), Harbhajan Singh (Sports-Mountaineering), Pukhraj Bafna (Medicine), Mansoor Hasan (Medicine), Shyama Prasad Mandal (Medicine), Sivapatham Vittal (Medicine), Madanur Ahmed Ali (Medicine), Indira Hinduja (Medicine), Jose Chacko Periappuram (Medicine), A Marthanda Pillai (Medicine), Mahim Bora (Literature), Pullella Srirama Chandrudu (Literature), Pravin Darji (Literature), Chandra Prakash Deval (Literature), Balraj Komal (Literature), Rajni Kumar (Literature), Devanooru Mahadeva (Literature), Barun Mazumder (Literature), Avvai Natarajan (Literature), Bhalchandra Nemade (Literature), Riyaz Punjabi (Literature), Koneru Ramakrishna Rao (Literature), Buangi Sailo (Literature), Devi Dutt Sharma (Literature), Nilamber Dev Sharma (Literature), Urvashi Butalia (Literature), Ritu Menon (Literature), Krishna Kumar (Literature), Deviprasad Dwivedi (Literature), Mamang Dai (Literature), Om Prakash Agrawal (Heritage Conservation), Madhukar Keshav Dhavalikar (Archeology), Shanti Teresa Lakra (Nursing), Gulshan Nanda (Handicrafts promotion), Azad Moopen (Social work, UAE) Upendra Baxi (Public affairs, UK), Mani Lal Bhaumik (Science and Engg, USA), Subra Suresh (Science and Engg, USA), Karl Harrington Potter (Literature, USA), Martha Chen (Social work, USA), Satpal Khattar (Trade, Singapore) and Granville Austin (Literature, USA). — PTI