As India celebrated its 64th year as a Republic, the nation honoured some of its leading talents with the Padma awards. President Pranab Mukherjee approved the names of the 108 awardees, which includes four Padma Vibhushan, 24 Padma Bhushan and 80 Padma Shri. Leading the Bollywood brigade at the awards was late Rajesh Khanna who was awarded the Padma Bhushan.
Following him were the likes of Sridevi who made a stunning comeback to films with English Vinglish, 62-year-old Nana Patekar, who began his career in 1978 with the movie Gaman, carved a niche for himself in the Hindi films with the 1989 film Parinda for which he even won a National Award and the celebrated filmmaker Ramesh Sippy.
The Padma Bhushan awardees include Late Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore, Late. Jaspal Bhatti, Producer Daggubati Rama Naidu, industrialist Adi Godrej, as well as sports stars Rahul Dravid and Mary Kom.
While other names in the Padma Shri winners’ list are playback singer Sudha Malhotra, veteran Telugu director Bapu, designer Ritu Kumar, Urdu poet Nida Fazli, wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt, boxer Dingko Singh, Magsaysay Award winner Nileema Mishra and Olympic medallist Vijay Kumar.
-Bollywood Hungama News Network.