President Pratibha Patil confers Padma awards

NEW DELHI: President Pratibha Patil conferred the Padma awards to late cartoonist Mario Miranda, actors Dharmendra and Shabana Azmi and former chief vigilance commissioner N Vittal among other eminent citizens on Wednesday.
Miranda's son Rahul received the Padma Vibhushan from Patil at a ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Among the Padma Bhushan awardees were literary theorist Homi K Bhabha, violinist M S Gopalakrishnan, Tata Steel vice chairman B Muthuraman, former bureaucrat Mata Prasad, mathematician M S Raghunathan, jurist P Chandrasekhara Rao, neurologist Noshir Hormusji Wadia and former Singapore Foreign Minister George Yong-Boon Yeo.
88-year-old eminent painter K G Subramanyan (Padma Vibushan), Satya Narayan Goenka and Jose Pereira (Padma Bhushan) were not present at the ceremony.
Among the Padma Shri awardees were industrialist Swati Piramal, eminent diabetologist V Mohan, former hockey Olympian Zaffar Iqbal, archer Limba Ram and cricket commentator of yesteryear Ravi Chaturvedi.
Yakshagana exponent Ramachandra Subraya Hegde Chittani, sitar maestro Shahid Parvez Khan, terracotta artist Mohan Lal Kumhar, Rajasthani folk musician Sakar Khan Manganiar also received the Padma Shri.
Odissi dancer Minati Mishra, theatre personality R Nagarathnamma, Lavani exponent Yamunabai Waikar and Chhau dancer Gopal Prasad Dubey Art also received the Padma Shri.
Homeopath Late Jugal Kishore was also among the Padma Shri awardees, but no one from his family was present to receive the award.