A day ahead of Republic Day, the 2025 list of Padma award winners was announced on Saturday. The honour celebrates the work of eminent personalities in art, social work, public affairs, science, business and other fields. The highest civilian honouring award of India is the Bharat Ratna, after which comes Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shree (in the order).
The Padma Vibhushan honours ‘exceptionally distinguished services’ to the nation. The Padma Bhushan is conferred to individuals for their ‘distinguished services of high order’ while the Padma Shri honours individuals for ‘distinguished service in a particular field’.
Padma Awardees of 2025
This year, the Padma Bhushan award will be conferred to 7 people, Padma Bhushan to 19 and Padma Shri to 113 individuals, making the total count 139. Out of these, the category that has the highest nomination is ‘arts’, with a total of 51 individuals. The 19 Padma Bhushan Awards include many prominent actors from the Southern Indian film industries.
The awardees include Nandamuri Balakrishna from Andhra Pradesh, a Telugu actor most famous for his dramatic masala movies. Anant Nag from Karnataka is a legendary Kannada actor who got his first popular role in veteran film director, Shyam Benegal’s debut Ankur (1974). The film later won a national award and made the movement of parallel cinema within the Indian film industry stronger. Actor-dancer, Shobhna Chandra Kumar from Kerala is a two-time national award winner and will now be awarded Padma Bhushan for her contributions across diverse genres like comedy, drama, thriller and romance, along with her talents in dance. Actor and racing driver Ajith Kumar from Tamil Nadu will also receive the Padma Bhushan for his commercial as well as critically acclaimed roles.
