President approves conferment of 128 Padma Awards: General Bipin Rawat awarded Padma Vibhushan

New Delhi, Jan 25: President Ram Nath Kovind has approved conferment of 128 Padma Awards which includes felicitation of 34 women and 10 persons from the category of Foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI and 13 Posthumous awardees. The list comprises 4 Padma Vibhushan, 17 Padma Bhushan and 107 Padma Shri Awards. India's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh were posthumously awarded Padma Vibhushan in the civilian honours. The Padma Bhushan awardees includes Ghulam Nabi Azad, actor Victor Banerjee, Punjabi singer Gurmeet Bawa, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Krishna Ella and Suchitra Ella, Madhur Jaffery, Devendra Jhajharia, Rashid Khan, Rajiv Mehrishi, Satya Narayana Nadella, Sundararajan Pichai, Cyrus Poonawalla, Sanjaya Rajaram (posthumous), Pratibha Ray, Swami Sachidanand and Vashishth Tripathi. Meanwhile, Neeraj Chopra, who won a gold medal in Javelin in Tokyo Olympics last year, will be conferred Padma Shri. Singer Sonu Nigam will also be conferred Padma Shri. The awards are given in various disciplines, fields of activities including art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports and civil service. 'Padma Vibhushan' is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service while 'Padma Bhushan' for distinguished service of high orders. Similarly'Padma Shri' is awarded for distinguished service in any field.  The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year and are conferred by the President of India at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March and April every year.