India Inc adds star power to list of Padma nominees

Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, ITC Chairman Yogesh Chander Deveshwar, Videocon Group Chairman and Managing Director Venugopal Nandlal Dhoot, GVK Chairman Gunapati Venkata Krishna Reddy, Infosys Director T V Mohandas Pai, MD and CEO of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar and Max India Chairman Analjit Singh are some of the prominent names being considered by the Padma Award Committee for this year's highest civilian honours.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, in its response to a Right to Information application, said Dr Reddy's Laboratories Chairman K Anji Reddy, MD & CEO of YES Bank Rana Kapoor and Rakesh Mittal of the Bharti group are on the list of probables to receive the top three civilian awards after Bharat Ratna - the Padma Shri, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan - for the trade and industry sector.

The committee is considering 1,300 names for this year's awards from which it is likely to select 120.

The awards will be announced on the eve of the Republic Day. The trade and industry segment had got 14 Padma awards last year.

Premji was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2005 while Dhoot received the third-highest civilian award in 2007. Anji Reddy was awarded Padma Shri in 2001.

Former IPCL chairman Hasmukh Shah and former advisor to the finance minister and the present director of Icrier, Parthasarathi

Shome, have also been nominated. The list also includes Ashok Kumar Mago, S M syed Khalil and Shankaran Nair.

The names of Kushagra Bajaj, D P Mhaiskar and Jaspal Singh Bindra from Maharashtra have also been doing the rounds.

Other names from the trade and industry segment include Mecca Rafeeque Ahmed, A M Gopalan, PRP Palanichamy, PG Periyasamy, KTS Raja and Cherukoori R Samaswamy from Tamil Nadu; Udai Shanker Awasthi, Sudhir Kumar Chaturvedi, Preeti Malhotra, Late Shri Ghulam Naqsband and Radhey Shyam Sharma from Delhi; Bansi Lal Baheti and Mustak Hossain from West Bengal; Balasubramaniam Muthuraman and Kesari Patil from Maharashtra; A S Chinnaswamy Raju from Karnataka; Alluri Venkata Satyanarayana Raju and Laxminiwas Sharma from Andhra Pradesh; Sarat Kumar Sahoo from Orissa and Manoharmayum Geetchandra Sharma from Manipur.

From Punjab, there are Rajinder Mittal and Inderjit Singh Pardhan. From Kerala, there are SH Musaliar and K R Nair. There is also K Ramachandran Pillai from Gujarat.

Padma Awards are given for distinguished services in any field, including services rendered by government servants. The recommendations are received from state governments and Union Territory administrations, central ministries and departments, and institutions of excellence that are considered by the committee.

The committee recommends the names but the final call is taken by the home minister, the prime minister and the president.