Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: PRESIDENT Droupadi Murmu presented Padma Awards for the year 2026 at a civil investiture ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on May 25. Among the dignitaries present on the occasion were VicePresident CP Radhakrishnan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
For this year, the Government had announced 131 Padma awards, including five Padma Vibhushan, 13 Padma Bhushan, and 113 Padma Shri.
In the May 25 ceremony, the President presented two Padma Vibhushan, six Padma Bhushan, and 58 Padma Shri awards. The remaining awardees will be felicitated in the second round of the ceremony to be held later.
She conferred the Padma Vibhushan on legendary Bollywood actor Dharmendra posthumously, received by his wife and MP Hema Malini; and violin virtuoso N Rajam, for exceptional contribution to their respective fields.
The Padma Bhushan was presented to former Uttarakhand chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari; Shatavadhani R Ganesh, who revived the classical art form of ‘Avadhana’; Uday Suresh Kumar Kotak, founder of Kotak Mahindra Bank; and eminent gastroenterologist Kallipatti Ramasamy Palaniswamy. The award was conferred posthumously on former MP Vijay Kumar Malhotra and ad guru Piyush Pandey.
Among the Padma Shri recipients were Prosenjit Chatterjee, one of the most influential figures of Indian cinema and Harmanpreet Kaur Bhullar, an inspirational figure in Indian women’s cricket.
