Padma Vibhushan for Rangarajan, Amonkar, Sorabjee

new delhi: eminent economist crangarajan, leading hindustani classical vocalist kishori amonkar and attorneygeneral soli sorabjee were on saturday honoured with padma vibhushan, the secondhighest civilian award, while noted playback singer k j yesudas and formerdiplomat jagat singh mehta received the padma bhushan. at a glittering ceremonyat the ashoka hall of rashtrapati bhavan, president k r narayanan gave awaypadma awards for 2000 to 45 eminent personalities for excellence in variousfields. classical singers prabha atre and shoba gurtu, pioneer of india''s itrevolution faquir chand kohli, mountaineer major h p s ahluwalia, cartoonjournalist mario de miranda, writer nirmal verma, eminent surgeon natesanrangabashyam, space scientist r v perumal, foreign industrialist henningholck-larsen, yoga exponent b k s raja iyengar and russian litterateur y pchelyshev were the other padma bhushan awardees. besides the presentation ofthree padma vibhushan and 13 padma bhushan awards, 29 people were honoured withpadma shri. three padma shri awardees gopal chhotray, hrashel sawi luaia andtaro nakayama were not present. another about 50 padma awards would be givenaway on march 27. vice-president krishan kant, prime minister atal biharivajpayee, former president r venkataraman, union ministers l k advani andjaswant singh and a galaxy of dignatories were present at te ceremony. thosehonoured with padma shri were former captain of indian women''s cricket teamdiana fram edulji, scientists a sivathanu pillai, kota harinarayana, amitavmallik, katuru narayana, n balakrishnan, r cowsik, v k sharma, and c ganguly,film maker govind nihalani, odissi danseuse kiran segal and well known tamilactress manorama. other padma shri awardees were scholar ashok kelkar,orthodontist a s narayana, eye specialists d balasubramanian and g n rao, zaridesigner fazal mohammad, eminent paediatrician karimpat mathangi ramakrishnan,poetess kim yang shik, journalists muzaffer hussain and k madhavan kutty,american diplomat phillips talbot, neurologist p k sethi, social worker p mamte, kashmiri folk singer raj begum, bharatnatyam danseuse saroja vaidyanathan,oncologist s h advani, veena player v m bhatt and musicologist n p seshadri.after being honoured, the padma awardees posed for group photographs withnarayanan and vajpayee.