NEW YORK (TIP): TV Asia Chairman/CEO and prominent Indian American community leader HR Shah was on Wednesday, January 25 named for the Padma Shri, India‘s fourth highest civilian honor in the field of Literature & Education – Journalism. Two other Indian Americans are also named for this year’s Padma Shri award – Ustad Imrat Khan in the field of Art-Music and Anant Agarwal in the field of Literature & Education.

The Padma awards are conferred by the President of India at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March/ April every year. This year the President of India has approved conferment of Padma Awards to 89 persons. The list comprises of 7 Padma Vibhushan, 7 Padma Bhushan and 75 Padma Shri Awardees. 19 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 5 persons from the category of foreigners, NRIs, PIOs and 6 posthumous awardees.

Mr HR Shah is the recipient of the prestigious 2005 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which is bestowed only on those who display significant contributions to their own communities and to the US at large. He has received more than a hundred awards and citations from across the globe in serving ethnic American communities in different fields. He is a founding member of GOPIO as well as Past President and Trustee of the Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Ellis Island-National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO). As the Chairman and Trustee of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (USA), the world famous institute of Indian culture, education, music and the arts, he has worked for the upliftment in lifestyle of Indians via education. With TV Asia, Mr Shah is the first NRI to run a 24/7 TV station in North America. He is also the first NRI to own a chain store business anywhere in the world – Krauszer’s Food Stores.

Shah said “I am deeply humbled, honored and overjoyed that the Republic of India has decided to confer on me the Padma Shri”. He said he would “rededicate” himself to help India and US further strengthen their ties.

“I look forward to receiving the Padma Shri in New Delhi later this year and rededicate myself to helping India and the United States further their close relations, as well as to promote India’s rich culture and heritage,” Shah said, January 25 after he was announced as a recipient of India’s prestigious civilian honor.

(Click here to Read the profile of HR Shah published recently in The Indian Panorama)

Ustad Imrat Khan, younger brother of sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan, has established his reputation not only by an absolute mastery of two different instruments, the sitar and the surbahar, but also by the consistent purity and integrity with which he presents every aspect of the great Indian classical genres, spanning the whole spectrum of feeling and expression. He is the senior performer of the Imdadkhani gharana, the school of sitar and surbahar performance named after his grandfather Imdad Khan. He spends a portion of each year teaching classical Indian music and instructing sitar students at Washington University in Saint Louis. In 1988 Imrat Khan received a Sangeet Natak Akademi Award from the president of India.

Anant Agarwal is currently the president of eDX.com in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. In 2012, he was named by Forbes magazine among the 15 “classroom revolutionaries” who are using innovative technologies to reinvent education for students and teachers globally. Agarwal did his early education in city’s St Aloysius College right from std 1 to second PUC (1977). He then moved to IIT-Madras where he did his BTech, and followed it up with MS and PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University, USA. At MIT, he led the development of Alewife, an early cache coherent multiprocessor, and founded Tilera, a fabless semiconductor company focusing on scalable multicore embedded processor design.

Here is thecomplete list of 2017 Padma award winners. The list comprises of 7 Padma Vibhushan, 7 Padma Bhushan and 75 Padma Shri Awardees.  19 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 5 persons from the category of foreigners, NRIs, PIOs and 6 Posthumous awardees.

PADMA VIBHUSHAN / Awardee Field of Prominence

• Sharad Pawar / Public Affairs
• Murli Manohar Joshi / Public Affairs
• P.A. Sangma (posthumous) / Public Affairs
• Sunder Lal Patwah (posthumous) / Public Affairs
• K.J. Yesudas / Art – Music
• Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev / Others – Spiritualism
• Udipi Ramachandra Rao / Science & Engineering

PADMA BHUSHAN / Awardee Field of Prominence

• Vishwa Mohan Bhatt / Art – Music
• Devi Prasad Dwivedi / Literature & Education
• Tehemton Udwadia / Medicine
• Ratna Sundar Maharaj / Others-Spiritualism
• Swami Niranjana Nanda Saraswati / Others-Yoga
• H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn (Foreigner) / Literature & Education
• Cho Ramaswamy (Posthumous) / Literature & Education –Journalism

PADMA SHRI / Awardee Field of Prominence

• Basanti Bisht / Art-Music
• Chemanchery Kunhiraman Nair / Art-Dance
• Aruna Mohanty / Art-Dance
• Bharathi Vishnuvardhan / Art-Cinema
• Sadhu Meher / Art-Cinema
• T K Murthy / Art-Music
• Laishram Birendrakumar Singh / Art-Music
• Krishna Ram Chaudhary / Art-Music
• Baoa Devi / Art-Painting
• Tilak Gitai / Art-Painting
• Aekka Yadagiri Rao / Art-Sculpture
• Jitendra Haripal / Art-Music
• Kailash Kher / Art-Music
• Parassala B Ponnammal / Art-Music
• Sukri Bommagowda / Art-Music
• Mukund Nayak / Art-Music
• PurushottamUpadhyay / Art-Music
• AnuradhaPaudwal / Art-Music
• WareppaNaba Nil / Art-Theatre
• Tripuraneni Hanuman Chowdary / Civil Service
• T.K. Viswanathan  / Civil Service
• Kanwal Sibal / Civil Service
• Birkha Bahadur Limboo Muringla / Literature & Education
• Eli Ahmed / Literature & Education
• Narendra Kohli / Literature & Education
• G. Venkatasubbiah / Literature & Education
• AkkithamAchyuthan Namboothiri / Literature & Education
• Kashi Nath Pandita / Literature & Education
• Chamu Krishna Shastry / Literature & Education
• Harihar KripaluTripathi / Literature & Education

• Michel Danino / Literature & Education
• Punam Suri / Literature & Education
• VG Patel / Literature & Education
• V Koteswaramma / Literature & Education
• Balbir Dutt / Literature & Education – Journalism

• BhawanaSomaaya Literature & Education-Journalism

• Vishnu Pandya Literature & Education-Journalism

• Subroto Das Medicine
• Bhakti Yadav Medicine
• Mohammed Abdul Waheed Medicine
• Madan MadhavGodbole Medicine
• DevendraDayabhai Patel Medicine
• Harkishan Singh Medicine
• MukutMinz Medicine
• Arun Kumar Sharma Others-Archaeology
• Sanjeev Kapoor Others-Culinary
• MeenakshiAmma Others-Martial Art
• GenabhaiDargabhai Patel Others-Agriculture
• ChandrakantPithawa Science & Engineering
• Ajoy Kumar Ray Science & Engineering
• ChintakindiMallesham Science & Engineering
• Jitendra Nath Goswami Science & Engineering
• DaripalliRamaiah Social Work
• Girish Bhardwaj Social Work
• KarimulHak Social Work
• BipinGanatra Social Work
• Nivedita Raghunath Bhide Social work
• AppasahebDharmadhikari Social Work
• Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal Social Work
• ViratKohli Sports-Cricket
• Shekar Naik Sports-Cricket
• Vikasa Gowda Discus Throw
• Deepa Malik Sports-Athletics
• MariyappanThangavelu Sports-Athletics
• DipaKarmakar Sports-Gymnastics
• P. R. Shreejesh Sports-Hockey
• Sakshi Malik Sports-Wrestling
• Mohan Reddy Venkatrama Bodanapu Trade & Industry

• Imrat Khan (NRI/PIO) Art-Music
• Anant Agarwal (NRI/PIO) Literature & Education
• H.R. Shah (NRI/PIO) Literature & Education-Journalism

• Suniti Solomon (Posthumous) Medicine
• Asoke Kumar Bhattacharyya (Posthumous) Others-Archaeology

• Dr. Mapuskar (Posthumous) Social Work
• AnuradhaKoirala (Foreigner) Social Work

(Source: PIB)