Know the 2018 Padma Awardees | Fusion - WeRIndia

Yesterday, Indian President Ram Nath Kovind approved awarding of 85 Padma awards. Among them, 73 are Padma Shri, 3 are Padma Vibhushan, and the remaining 9 are Padma Bhushan awards.

14 of the awardees are women and 16 are foreigners. Three are being awarded posthumously.

Music composer-director Ilaiyaraaja is honoured with a Padma Vibhushan, where as famous sports personalities M.S. Dhoni and Pankaj Advani are honoured with Padma Bhushan

Gond artist Bhajju Shyam has been honoured with a Padma Shri. He was born in a poor tribal family and worked very hard to his support family. Then he became a professional artist. His ‘The London Jungle Book’ sold 30,000 copies and was published in five foreign languages.

Malaysian dancer-choreographer Ramli Bin Ibrahim, doctor couple Abhay Bang and Rani Bang are included in the Padma Shri award.

Many of the Padma Shri awardees are normal citizens who do ‘extraordinary’ things for the country like serving the poor, establishing free schools etc.

Arvind Gupta, an IIT Kanpur alumnus is one of the Padma Shri awardees. So far, he visited 3,000 schools in the last four decades and inspired students to learn science from trash. He made 6,200 short films on toy-making in 18 languages.

Murlikant Petkar is India’s first Para-Olympic gold medalist. He has also been honoured with a Padma Shri. He lost his arm in the 1965 Indo-Pak war.

Lakshmikutty is a tribal woman from Kerala. She helped many people bitten by snakes and insects with her herbal medicines. She is the only tribal woman from her area to attend school in the 1950s.

Kerala’s medical messiah for the terminally ill, M R Rajagopal, is another Padma Shri awardee. He has specialized in pain relief care for neo natal cases.

Tamil Nadu’s Rajagopalan Vasudevan, renowned for developing an innovative method to reuse plastic waste to construct roads, has also been given the Padma Shri.

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash (Free for Commercial Use)

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