The Padma awards for this year had a list of 26 names to decide from. Only two of them could make it to the final list of awards and they were musician Shankar Mahadevan and Professor Subhash Kak.
List of people who couldn’t make it to the final list includes some names which could be deserving. ISRO’s Chairman K Sivan, former IIT-Bombay Director Devang Khakhar and filmmaker Bharatbala Ganapathy. ISRO and DRDO are the key reasons behind Mission Shakti’s success.
It is because of Mission Shakti that India made it to the elite group of countries with anti-satellite (A-SAT) technology. The Ministry of Home Affairs charts say that the search committee had sent its recommendations to the awards committee headed by Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha and former SBI Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta, Sangeet Natak Akademi Chairman Shekhar Sen and former cabinet minister Mohammad Khan.
The search committee’s recommendations who couldn’t make it to the final list were Jeroo Billimoria a social entrepreneur, P K Wattal BARC scientist, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute Director Anil Rajvanshi, Indian Council of Agriculture Research’s Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, Director Dr Bakshi Tam, Hindustani classical musical vocalist Pt Sanjeev Abhyankar, film director Ketan Mehta, artist Sanka Samanta and Central Agricultural University, Imphal, Vice Chancellor S Ayyapan.
It’s an unusual fact but recommendations for the Padma awards are also received from the state government and Union territory administrations. 112 people got the Padma awards this year.
