Music Maestro Ilaiyaraja and cricketer M.S. Dhoni were among the year's 89 Padma awardees announced by the centre on the eve of the 69th Republic Day. While Ilaiyaraja was among the Padma Vibhushan awardees, MS Dhoni is among the nine Padma Bhushan awardees. One of the highest civilian awards in the country.
The awards are categorised into three categories namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. The 'Padma Vibhushan' is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; 'Padma Bhushan' for distinguished service of high order and 'Padma Shri' for distinguished service in any field.
The government has taken conscious effort to identify people who made a significant contribution to the society and they have 85 recipients this year including 3 Padma Vibhushan, 9 Padma Bhushan and 73 Padma Shri awards. Fourteen of the awardees are women, while 16 are foreigners and three are being awarded posthumously.
The List of Awardees for 2018 :
Padma Vibhushan
Illaiyaraja
Ghulam Mustafa Khan
P. Parameswaran
Padma Bhushan
Pankaj Advani
Philipose Mar Chrysostom
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Alexander Kadakin (Foreigner/Posthumous)
R. Nagaswamy
Ved Prakash Nanda (Overseas Citizen of India)
Laxman Pai
Arvind Parikh
Sharda Sinha
Padma Shri
Abhay and Rani Bang
Damodar Ganesh Bapat
Prafulla Govinda Baruah
Mohan Swaroop Bhatia
Sudhanshu Biswas
Saikhom Mirabai Chanu
Pandit Shyamlal Chaturvedi
Jose Ma Joey Concepcion III (Foreigner)
Langpoklakpam Subadani Devi
Somdev Devvarman
Yeshi Dhoden
Arup Kumar Dutta
Doddarange Gowda
Arvind Gupta
Digamber Hansda
Ramli Bin Ibrahim (Foreigner)
Anwar Jalalpuri (Posthumous)
Piyong Temjen Jamir
Sitavva Joddati
Malti Joshi
Manoj Joshi
Rameshwarlal Kabra
Pran Kishore Kaul
Bounlap Keokangna (Foreigner)
Vijay Kichlu
Tommy Koh (Foreigner)
Lakshmikutty
Joyshree Goswami Mahanta
Narayan Das Maharaj
Pravakara Maharana
Hun Many (Foreigner)
Nouf Marwaai (Foreigner)
Zaverilal Mehta
Krishna Bihari Mishra
Sisir Purushottam Mishra
Subhasini Mistry
Tomio Mizokami (Foreigner)
Somdet Phra Maha Muniwong (Foreigner)
Keshav Rao Musalgaonkar
Thant Myint – U (Foreigner)
V Nanammal
Sulagitti Narasamma
Vijayalakshmi Navaneethakrishnan
I Nyoman Nuarta (Foreigner)
Malai Haji Abdullah Bin Malai Haji Othman (Foreigner)
Gobaradhan Panika
Bhabani Charan Pattanaik
Murlikant Petkar
Habibullo Rajabov (Foreigner)
M R Rajagopal
Sampat Ramteke (Posthumous)
Chandra Sekhar Rath
SS Rathore
Amitava Roy
Sanduk Ruit (Foreigner)
R Sathyanarayana
Pankaj M Shah
Bhajju Shyam
Maharao Raghuveer Singh
Kidambi Srikanth
Ibrahim Sutar
Siddeshwara Swamiji
Lentina Ao Thakkar
Vikram Chandra Thakur
Rudrapatnam Narayanaswamy Tharanathan
Nguyen Tien Thien
Bhagirath Prasad Tripathi
Rajagopalan Vasudevan
Manas Bihari Verma
Panatawane Gangadhar Vithobaji
Romulus Whitaker
Baba Yogendra
A Zakia