Republic Day 2024: Top Padma honour for Venkaiah Naidu, Chiranjeevi
Hindustan TimesFormer vice-president Venkaiah Naidu, Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi, yesteryear stalwart Vyjayanthimala, Sulabh founder Bindheshwar Pathak, and Bharatnatyam exponent Padma Subrahmanyam are the five people awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honour, the government announced on Thursday. Nine awardees were posthumously honoured — including Tamil actor-turned-politician Vijaykanth and India’s first woman Supreme Court judge, M Fathima Beevi who were both awarded the Padma Bhushan. Among the 17 Padma Bhushan awardees were actor Mithun Chakraborty, singer Usha Uthup, industrialist Sitaram Jindal, Taiwan based Foxconn chairman Young Liu, politicians Ram Naik and O Rajagopal, and journalist Hormusji Cama. These, to name a few, included Jankilal, a third-generation performer from Bhilwara who is a master in the fading Behrupiya art; Badrappan M, an 87-year-old Valli Oyil Kummi folk dance guru from Coimbatore; Chami Murmu, a tribal environmentalist and women empowerment champion; Omprakash Sharma, a Mach theatre artist from Malwa who has devoted seven decades to this traditional dance drama; Gopinath Swain, a centenarian from Ganjam who has been performing Krishna Leela for over nine decades; Uma Maheshwari D, the first woman Harikatha exponent who has performed globally in different ragas; and Parbati Baruah, India’s first woman mahout from Assam who started taming wild tuskers at the age of 14.