BENGALURU: Eight stalwarts from Karnataka from diverse fields have been picked for this year’s Padma awards by the central government. One of them is a Padma Bhushan awardee, while seven others are Padma Shri winners. Shatavadhani R Ganesh has been conferred with the Padma Bhushan in the art category.
The Padma Shri awardees are Ankegowda M (social work); Prabhakar Basavprabhu Kore (literature and education); SG Susheelamma (social work); Shashi Shekhar Vempati (literature and education); Shubha Venkatesha Iyengar (science and engineering); Dr Suresh Hanagavadi (medicine) and TT Jagannathan (posthumous; trade and industry).
The awards will be presented in March or April.
Shatavadhani Ganesh has been honoured for reviving Sanskrit arts of Ashtavadhana and Shatavadhana. A renowned polyglot, Ganesh has revived the lost art forms with over a thousand performances across the country.
Dr Susheelamma has rendered exemplary service through Sumangali Seva Ashrama, an orphanage that takes in not just orphans, but also women in distress.
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Dr Suresh Hanagavadi has been recognised for founding the Karnataka Hemophilia Society, which offers treatment to patients suffering from haemophilia and other rare blood disorders.
The honour for Ankegowda, a former bus conductor, is for starting Pustaka Mane, a free library to take literature and the culture of reading to marginalised communities.
Author and columnist Shashi Shekhar Vempati, co-founder of AI4India.org, has won the Padma Shri for successfully bringing Doordarshan and Akashvani into the digital landscape. Prabhakar Basavaprabhu Kore, winner in the literature and education category, is the chairman of the Karnataka Lingayat Education (KLE) Society in Belagavi, which runs over 300 educational institutions.
Shubha Venkatesha Iyengar of the National Aerospace Laboratories has been recognised for developing the indigenous “Drishti” aviation weather systems and infrared detectors, which are installed at over 100 locations across the country. Jagannathan, who headed the TTK Prestige Group and stood at the forefront of cooker exports, invented the GRS safety mechanism for pressure cookers, which stops excess pressure from building up within the cooker.