President presents Padma Awards to 56 prominent personalities

56 of 112 prominent personalities were presented the awards as the remaining awardees are likely to be conferred the prize at another function on March 16

New Delhi: President Ram Nath Kovind presented the Padma Awards to 56 of the 112 prominent personalities at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Monday. Some of the awardees include Malayalam actor Mohanlal, Akali Dal leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, renowned journalist Kuldip Nayar (posthumous), and Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar. The Padma Awards, which are one of the highest civilian honours in the country, are presented in three categories: the Padma Vibhushan, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri.

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Renowned dancer and filmmaker Prabhu Deva (Padma Shri), renowned singer Shankar Mahadevan Narayan (Padma Shri), former CEO of multinational techno giant Cisco systems John Chambers (Padma Bhushan) and Bihar leader Hukumdev Narayan Yadav (Padma Bhushan) were also felicitated at the event, which had Prime Minister Narendra Modi in attendance.

Viswanathan Mohanlal, Dhindsa and Nayar (posthumous) were presented with the Padma Bhushan award, as Jaishankar was felicitated with the Padma Shri. Nayar's wife received the award from the President Kovind.

Function for remaining 56 awardees on Mar 16

The names of the 112 awardees for the Padma prize were announced on the eve of Republic Day. The remaining awardees will likely be presented the honour at another function on March 16, a Home Ministry official said.

Other prominent winners

The other notable awardees comprise former Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha Karia Munda (Padma Bhushan), physicians Sandeep Guleria and Ilias Ali (both Padma Shri), wrestler Bajrang Punia (Padma Shri).

This year, a record 50,000 nominations were received for the awards – 20 times more than in 2014, when there were only 2,200 nominations.