NEW DELHI: Nobel laureate Venkataraman Ramakrishnan might be the most prominent of them, but there are a dozen other overseas Indians – or foreigners with an India-link – who figure in this year’s list of Padma awards.
They inculde UK-based former Hindustan Lever CEO Manvinder Singh Banga.
But mostly they come from the US like the controversial hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal and Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria, both of whom have won the Padma Bhushan.
And there is a Padma Bhushan for an Indian national of Chinese origin who has written reams on Chinese culture, history and relations with India. Prof Tan Chung was born in Malaya, spent two decades in China, another four in India and now lives in the US.
And then there is Padma Shri winner Hermann Kulke – a German Indologist, who has taught in Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Delhi, studied Orissa’s traditions and written ‘A History of India’.
Sheldon Pollock, also a Padma Shri winner, is a Columbia University professor with a formidable reputation as an Indologist and a Sanskrit scholar.
The overseas Indians in the science and engineering list include Arogyaswami Joseph Paulraj (Padma Bhushan) and Ponisseril Somasundaran (Padma Shri).
J R Gangaramani, founder of the Gulf-based Al Fara’a Integrated Construction Group gets the Padma Shri for social work _ the category under which US-based asthma specialist Sudhir M Parikh is also honoured.