Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan and Prince Karim Aga Khan were among the eminent personalities awarded the Padma Vibhushan, country's second highest civilian honour, by President Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Besides them, senior Supreme Court advocate Kottayan K Venugopal and D Veerendra Heggade of the famous Dharmasthala Jain temple in Karnataka were also conferred the Padma Vibhushan.
Renowned Assamese filmmaker Jahnu Barua and computer scientist Vijay Bhatkar were given the Padma Bhushan, third highest civilian honour, during the civil investiture ceremony held at the majestic Durbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Hockey player Saba Anjum, women cricketer Mithali Raj, economist Bibek Debroy, IT honcho T V Mohandas Pai and musician Ravindra Jain were given Padma Shri.
Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal were among the prominent dignitaries present during the event.
Amitabh's son Abhishek Bachchan, daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and daughter Shweta Nanda were also present at the ceremony.
The Padma awards were announced on the eve of Republic Day this year. It included nine Padma Vibhushan, 20 Padma Bhushan and 75 Padma Shri.
Seventeen recipients were women and as many in the categories of foreigners, NRIs and PIOs while there were four posthumous awardees.
The 38 Padma Shri awardees include music maestro Ravindra Jain, renown Hindi poet Sunil Jogi, vice-chancellor of Gujarat Ayurved University Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, eminent writer and freedom fighter Lambert Mascarenhas, vocalist Tripti Mukherjee, founder of Shillong Chamber Choir Neil Herbert Nongkynrih, chairperson of Manipal Global Education Services T V Mohandas Pai and environmental activist Jadav Payeng, who single handedly turned a sandbar of Brahmaputra into a reserve forest.
Captain of Indian women cricket team Mithali Raj, Portuguese yoga grand master Jagat Guru Amrta Suryananda Maha Raja, former director of NCERT J S Rajput, South Indian film star Kota Srinivasa Rao, renowned author of Hindi literature Manu Sharma, director of the Indian Space Research Organisatopm satellite centre S K Shivakumar, AIIMS, New Delhi's ophthalmologist Yoj Raj Sharma and Assamese writer Lakshmi Nandan Bora were also given with Padma Shri awards.
Two Padma Shri awardees were not present at the civil investiture ceremony.
