Padma Awards: Former Suzuki Motor CEO, Brazil's Vedanta guru among awardees

Padma Awards: Former Suzuki Motor CEO, Brazil's Vedanta guru among awardees

Padma Awards: Former Suzuki Motor CEO, Brazil's Vedanta guru among awardees ByHT News Desk Jan 25, 2025 11:06 PM IST Share Via Copy Link The Padma Awards are one of India's highest civilian honours, announced annually on the eve of Republic Day.

Padma Awards 2025: The Centre on Saturday announced the names of 139 recipients of the coveted Padma Awards.

Late Japanese industrialist Osamu Suzuki (left) and Brazil's Jonas Masetti.(File)

The list comprises seven Padma Vibhushan, 19 Padma Bhushan and 113 Padma Shri Awards. Full list of Padma Awards winners here.

The Padma Awards are one of India's highest civilian honours, announced annually on the eve of Republic Day.

The award seeks to recognise achievements in all fields of activity or disciplines involving an element of public service. The Padma Awards are conferred on the recommendations made by the Padma Awards Committee, which is constituted by the prime minister every year.

Among those awarded the Padma Awards this year also include foreign nationals, Non-Resident Indians, Persons of Indian Origin, and Overseas Citizens of India.

Late Japanese industrialist Osamu Suzuki, the former chief of Suzuki Motor Corporation, has been honoured with India's second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan posthumously.

Suzuki has been awarded the 'Padma Vibhushan' for the year 2025 "for exceptional and distinguished service" in the field of trade and industry. He died last year at the age of 94.

Indian-American engineer Vinod Dham, widely known as the 'Father of the Pentium chip', is among the 19 Padma Bhushan awardees. He is a distinguished alumnus of the University of Cincinnati and Delhi Technologic University.

Ajay V Bhatt, a prominent technologist and the creator of the Universal Service Bus (USB) and Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), will also receive the Padma Shri.

Chetan Chitnis, a prominent malaria researcher, has been awarded the Padma Shri.

Chitnis completed his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1990 and conducted postdoctoral research on malaria at the US National Institutes of Health. He returned to India in 1995 where he established a laboratory that combined fundamental and translational malaria research. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy.

Jonas Masetti, who is based in Brazil and popularises Vedanta and Gita among the people, has been awarded the Padma Shri.

Sethuraman Panchanathan, the Director of the National Science Foundation of the US is also among the Padma Shri recipients. Panchanathan earned a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Madras in 1981 and in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in 1984.

He then earned his master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras in 1986 and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Canada-based University of Ottawa in 1989.

American author and researcher Stephen Knapp, known for his writing on Vedic culture and spirituality, will also be awarded the Padma Shri.