By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: Odisha’s Sudarshan Sahoo for Art , Shinzo Abe of Japan for Public Affairs and S P Balasubramaniam of Tamil Nadu (Posthumous) for Art were among 7 persons nominated on Monday for Padma Vibhushan Award. Non from Odisha got Padma Bhushan Award while Padma Shri will be conferred on Odisha’s Shanti Devi – Social Work, Purnamasi Jani – Art, Rajat Kumar Kar – Education and Literature, Dr. Krishna Mohan Pathi – Medicine and Nanda Prusty-Literature and Education.
Padma Awards – one of the highest civilian Awards of the country, are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. 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. This year the President has approved conferment of 119 Padma Awards including 1 duo case (in a duo case, the Award is counted as one) as per list below. The list comprises 7 Padma Vibhushan, 10 Padma Bhushan and 102 Padma Shri Awards. 29 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 10 persons from the category of Foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI, 16 Posthumous awardees and 1 transgender awardee.
