India's top civilian awards were announced on Friday.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and star cricketer Sachin Tendulkar have been chosen for the Padma Vibhushan awards.
Other noted personalities to be bestowed with the Padma Vibhushan include noted playback singer Asha Bhosle, chess wizard Viswanathan Anand, mountaineer Edmund Hillary (posthumously) and industrialists Ratan Naval Tata, Infosys mentor N R Narayana Murthy, steel tycoon Lakshmi Narayan Mittal and hotelier P R S Oberoi.
Nobel prize winner and noted environmentalist R K Pachauri, Delhi Metro Chief E Sreedharan, former bureaucrat P N Dhar and former Chief Justice of India Justice A S Anand complete the list of 13 personalities to be awarded the country's second highest civilian award.
Thirty-five Padma Bhushan and 71 Padma Shri awards are also being given this year.
Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, Central government's interlocutor for talks with Naga groups and former Home Secretary K Padmanabhaiah, noted commentator Jasdev Singh, DPS R K Puram principal Shyama Chona and ICICI chief K V Kamath are among those named for Padma Bhushan awards.
Noted French writer Dominique Lapierre, HCL chief Shiv Nadar, Citibank head Vikram Pandit and former diplomat Chandrashekhar Dasgupta are other Padma Bhushan awardees.
Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit, Hollywood film maker Manoj Night Shyamalan, actor Tom Alter, UGC chairman Sukhdeo Thorat, FICCI general secretary Amit Mitra, noted footballer Baichung Bhutia and swimmer Bula Chowdhury have been named for Padma Shri awards.
Leading television journalists Barkha Dutt (NDTV), Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN-IBN) and Vinod Dua (NDTV-India), Jammu University Vice Chancellor Amitabh Mattoo and playback singer Jawahar Wattal are among other Padma Shri awardees.
For the seventh consecutive year, no one has been named for the country's highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna.
More from rediff