The Padma Awards are among the highest civilian honours of India and are given under three categories, namely: Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, and Padma Shri. The recommendations for Padma Awards are received from the State Governments/Union Territory Administrations, Central Ministries/Departments, Institutions of Excellence, etc., which are considered by an Awards Committee. The awards are conferred to distinguished persons recommended by the Padma Awards Committee, constituted every year by the Prime Minister. These Awards are announced on the eve of the Republic Day and are conferred by the President of India at ceremonial functions, held at Rashtrapati Bhawan.
In 1954 the Government of India had instituted two civilian awards, Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan, which—had three classes Pahela Varg, Dusra Varg and Tisra Varg. These were subsequently renamed as Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri through a Presidential Notification issued on January 8, 1955.
The Padma Awards are given in various disciplines, such as art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc. They are awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; for distinguished service of a high order; and for distinguished service respectively.
In 2020, 141 Padma Awards were approved by the President of India. The list comprises 7 Padma Vibhushan, 16 Padma Bhushan, and 118 Padma Shri Awards. Thirty-four of the Padma awardees of 2020 are women. It also included 18 persons from the category of foreigners, Non-resident Indians (NRI), People of Indian Origin (PIO), Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) and 12 posthumous awardees.
George Fernandes, Arun Jaitley, and Sushma Swaraj were awarded Padma Vibhushan (posthumous) in Public Affairs category. The spiritual guru duo, Sri Vishveshateertha Swamiji and Sri Pejavara Adhokhaja Matha Udupi (posthumous) were awarded Padma Vibhushan for Spiritualism. M.C. Mary Kom was awarded for Sports; Sir Anerood Jugnauth of Mauritius for Public Affairs while Chhannulal Mishra for Art.
Were conferred Padma Bhushan Awards for Public Affairs.
Syed Muazzem Ali of Bangladesh (posthumous), Muzaffar Hussain Baig of Jammu and Kashmir, S.C. Jamir of Nagaland, Duo Neelakanta Ramakrishna & Madhava Menon (posthumous), and Manohar G.P. Parrikar (posthumous) were conferred. The other Padma Bhushan awardees included: Prof. Jagdish Sheth of the USA and Manoj Das of Puducherry (Literature and Education); Krishnammal Jagannathan of Tamil Nadu and Anil Prakash Joshi of Uttarakhand (Social Work); Anand Mahindra of Maharashtra and Venu Srinivasan of Tamil Nadu (Trade and Industry); Ajoy Chakravorty of West Bengal (Arts); M Mumtaz Ali (Sri M) of Kerala (Spiritualism); Balakrishna Doshi of Gujrat (Architecture); Dr Tsering Landol of Ladakh (Medicine) and P.V. Sindhu of Telangana for Sports.
Padma Shri Awards were conferred to 118 persons for their distinguished services in various disciplines, including 29 for Arts, 25 for Literature and Education, 13 for Medicine, 2 for Public Affairs, 8 for Science and Engineering, 20 for Social Work, 6 for Sports, 9 for Trade and Industry and 6 in the Others category (1 for Archaeology, 4 for Agriculture, and 1 for Animal Husbandry).
Oncologist Ravi Kannan; social worker Sathyanarayanan Mundayoor; Indira P.P. Bora (Dancing); Kushal Konwar Sarma, a veterinarian; Jogendra Nath Phukan, educationist; Lil Bahadur Chettri, a Nepali novelist; Radha Mohan, an economist; his daughter Sabarmatee, a conservationist; and Dayamanti Beshra, a prominent Santhali researcher are to name a few of Padma Shri recepients.