President Ram Nath Kovind confers Padma on 47 personalities

New Delhi: President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday conferred Padma Awards on 47 prominent and inspiring personalities, in three categories of Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.

The awardees include Malayalam actor Mohanlal, former foreign secretary S Jaishankar, Akali Dal leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and renowned journalist Kuldip Nayar (posthumous). Also, there are eight sportspersons who received the honours this time. They are grandmaster Harika Dronavalli, wrestler Bajrang Punia, cricketer Gautam Gambhir, football captain Sunil Chhetri, basketball player Prashanti Singh, archer Bombayla Devi Laishram, kabaddi captain Ajay Thakur and table tennis player Sharath Kamal.

Bihar leader Hukumdev Narayan Yadav (Padma Bhushan), former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of multinational techno giant Cisco systems John Chambers (Padma Bhushan) and renowned dancer and filmmaker Prabhu Deva (Padma Shri) were also honoured at a special function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

While Viswanathan Mohanlal, Dhindsa and Nayar (posthumous) were conferred the Padma Bhushan, Jaishankar was honoured with the Padma Shri. Nayar's wife received the award from the President.

Bachendri Pal, who became the first Indian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1984, has been bestowed with the honour for 'distinguished service of a high order.' She was conferred with the Padma Bhushan award. As many as 112 personalities were selected for this year's Padma awards and their names were announced on the eve of Republic Day this year. The remaining awardees are likely to be conferred the honour at another function to be held on March 16, a Home Ministry official said.

Other notable awardees include renowned singer Shankar Mahadevan Narayan (Padma Shri), former Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha Karia Munda (Padma Bhushan), physicians Sandeep Guleria and Ilias Ali (both Padma Shri) and wrestler Bajrang Punia (Padma Shri).