New Delhi: Boxing great Mary Kom has been selected for the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second highest civilian award. Olympic silver medallist and reigning badminton World Champion P.V. Sindhu has been named for Padma Bhushan as the names of Padma awardees were disclosed on Saturday on the eve of the 71st Republic Day.
Rated as one of the most successful amateur boxers of all time, Mary Kom won bronze at the 2012 London Olympics and has won gold at the boxing World Championships for a record six times.
She has won a total of eight medals at the World Championships, the most recent of which came in October 2019 in Ulan Ude, Russia.
The 36-year-old is now looking to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Padma Bhushan
Former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, leading industrialists Anand Mahindra and Venu Srinivasan along with 16 others have been selected for the Padma Bhushan awards, government said on Saturday.
According to a government release, Parrikar, who was also the Goa Chief Minister, has been selected for the Padma Bhushan awards posthumously this year.
Parrikar, who was four-time Goa Chief Minister, passed away on March 18 last year after a long battle with cancer.
Mahindra & Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra and TVS group Chairman Srinivasan are also on the list of the country’s third highest civilian award.
Besides the former Defence Minister and the two industrialists, former Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh Syed Muazzem Ali, who served as Bangladesh’s envoy to India, has also been conferred with the Padma Bhushan Award posthumously.
Ali passed away on December 30 last year.
Shuttler P.V. Sindhu is the only player to get the Padma Bhushan Award this year.
Name of former Nagaland Chief Minister S.C. Jamir also featured on the list of the Padma Bhushan awardees this year.
Jamir, who served as the Governor of Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa, was one of the signatories of the 16-Point Agreement which brought about the creation of Nagaland state. Jamir is considered one of the architects of modern Nagaland.
Besides Jamir, the list also included the names of former Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Syed Muzaffar Hussain Baig, a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader and Ladakh-based gynecologist Tsering Landol.
Landol, who was conferred with the Padma Shri in 2006, is an Indian gynecologist and one of the pioneers of women’s health in Ladakh region. She was the first woman doctor from Ladakh to receive the Padma Shri award in 2006.
Spiritual teacher Sri M. Mumtaz Ali, Ajoy Chakravorty (Art), Manoj Das (Literature and Education), Balkrishna Doshi (architecture), social workers Krishnammal Jagannathan and Anil Prakash Joshi also figure on the list of Padma Bhushan awardees.
Renowned academic and father of modern legal education in India, Dr Neelakanta Ramakrishna Madhava Menon (posthumous) also figured on the list.
Menon was conferred Padma Shri in 2003 for his contribution to modern legal education system.
Prof Jagdish Sheth, a renowned scholar and internationally recognized thought leader, who is known best for his scholarly contributions in consumer psychology, relationship marketing, competitive strategy, and geopolitical analysis is on the list of the Padma Bhushan awardees this year.
Unsung hero
From conservation of Asian elephants to treating thousands of cancer patients at zero cost -- there are several awardees who were on Saturday selected for Padma Shri Award ahead of the 71st Republic Day.
Ravi Kannan, also known Silchar’s saviour, is a surgical oncologist from Chennai, who has treated over 70,000 cancer patients free of cost in Barak valley. The treatment includes accommodation, food, employment and spreading awareness.
He is known to have transformed the rural cancer centre into a full-fledged hospital and research centre. He quit his job in Chennai and shifted to Assam with family in 2007 to make healthcare accessible in the Barak valley, where before his intervention, the nearest hospital was 300 km away.
Kushal Knowar Sarma, a veterinarian in Guwahati, has devoted his life to the conservation of Asian elephants. Interestingly, he has not taken a single weekend off in the last 30 years. He is acclaimed for treating more than 700 elephants every year.
He has pioneered research in elephant anesthetics, especially using remote tranquilizing injection technique.
Arunoday Mondal, also known as ‘Sunderban ke Sujan’ is a doctor who travels six hours every weekend to treat patients in remote Sundarban villages. People are treated every weekend across a range of treatments from heart to eyes, thyroid, gynaecology & paediatrics.
He also arranges medicines, conducts medical camps and blood donation drives. He set up Sujan Sundarban, a free medical service centre at his residence in Chandanpur after Bengal floods in the year 2000.
The list also includes Yogi Aeron, known as Himalaya’s helping hand. He started Helping Hand, Dehradun, and is dedicated to providing medical help to the hill people. He treats over 500 patients free of cost every year. The patients include those suffering from burns or are mauled by animals.
His patients are mostly poor, hill women from remote villages in the Himalayas. He has organized 14 days’ camps in remote villages for the last 13 years.
