Agencies/New Delhi

Bharatiya Janata Party’s veteran leader leader L K Advani, spiritual leader and philanthropist Aga Khan, Bollywood actors Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal are among nine eminent people who were awarded India’s second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, yesterday.
Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, journalists Swapan Dasgupta and Rajat Sharma, lawyer Harish Salve, filmmaker Jahnu Barua, former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami, wrestler-turned-coach Satpal, and maths “Nobel Prize” winner Manjul Bhargava were among the 20 recipients of the Padma Bhushan, according to a home ministry statement.
Popular Carnatic composer and vocalist Sudha Raghunathan was also named for the Padma Bhushan.
National hockey team captain Sardar Singh was among the five sportspersons chosen for the Padma Shri awards.
Women’s badminton star P V Sindhu, former women’s hockey captain Saba Anjum, Arunima Sinha - the first woman amputee mountaineer to climb Mount Everest, and women’s cricket team skipper Mithali Raj were the other sportspersons selected for the Padma Shri.
The Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian awards of the country, is given for distinguished service of high order and Padma Shri for distinguished service in any field. The 59-year-old Satpal was a trailblazer in Indian wrestling, winning the bronze medal in the 1974 Asian Games and then improving his performance by striking gold in the 1982 Asiad held in New Delhi.
Continuing his contribution for the country’s ancient sport, he established an ‘akhada’ in Chhatrasal Stadium, which produced India’s only two-time individual Olympic medal winner Sushil Kumar who also became a world champion in 2010.
Satpal was conferred the Arjuna Award in 1974, Padma Shri in 1983, and the Dronacharya award in 2009 in a glittering career both as a player and coach.
Among the Padma Shri award winners, Sardar Singh stands out for captaining the side to an Asian Games gold after 16 years. The talismanic centre-half also led the team to a silver medal in the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The 28-year-old has represented India in more than 200 international matches.
Badminton protégé Sindhu’s most notable performance last year was winning the bronze at the Copenhagen World Championships. With the medal, she became the first and only Indian ever to win two World medals, that too back-to-back in the sport’s most prestigious tournament.