Padma Awards 2025: President approves 139 Padma Awards; List includes 7 Padma Vibhushan, 19 Padma Bhushan and 113 Padma Shri 

On January 25 2025, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced the Padma Awards for 2025. The official list released comprises 7 Padma Vibhushan, 19 Padma Bhushan and 113 Padma Shri Awards.

Padma Awards 2025:

i.Droupadi Murmu, the President of India has approved the conferment of 139 Padma Awards, including 1 duo case cases (in a duo case, the award is counted as one) for year 2025.

ii.Among the awardees, there are 23 women and the list also comprises 10 persons from the category of foreigners or Non-Resident Indians (NRI) or Person of Indian Origin (PIO) or Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) and 13 Posthumous awardees.

Padma Awards Committee:

i.Padma Awards are given based on recommendations made by the Padma Awards committee constituted by the Prime Minister(PM) annually. The nomination process is open to the public and even self- nomination is accepted.

ii.Padma Awards committee is chaired by Cabinet Secretary of India which includes members such as: Home Secretary, Secretary to the President and 4 to 6 eminent people.

• The recommendations of the committee are submitted to the PM and the President of India for final approval.
• At present, T.V. Somanathan is the cabinet secretary of India.

List of Padma Awards 2025

Padma Vibhushan(7):

Eminent Personalities honoured with the Padma Vibhushan:

i.Justice (Retd.) Jagdish Singh Khehar, former Chief Justice of India (CJI) is one of the Padma Vibhushan awardee for year 2025. He is also the 1st Sikh who served as 44th CJI between January 4, 2017 and August 27, 2017.

ii.Dr. D Nageshwar Reddy, founder and chairman of (Hyderabad)Telangana-based AIG Hospitals which was established as unit of Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, was honoured with Padma Vibhushan award for his exceptional contributions to public health, specifically in the field of gastroenterology.

• With this, he became the 1st medical doctor in India to be conferred with all Padma Awards i.e. Padma Shri (2002), Padma Bhushan (2016) and Padma Vibhushan (2025).

iii.Former President, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Japan based Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC), Osamu Suzuki conferred the Padma Vibhushan posthumously in ‘trade and industry’ category for his outstanding contributions in promoting the growth of the Indian automobile sector.

iv.Other distinguished personalities bestowed with Padma Vibhushan: famous Kathak dancer, Kumudini Rajnikant Lakhia from Gujarat; Renowned Malayalam writer and Jnanpith winner MT Vasudevaan Nair (Posthumous), from Kerala and Sharda Sinha (Posthumous), famous folk singer from Bihar.Padma Bhushan(19):

Eminent Personalities honoured with Padma Bhushan:

i.PR Sreejesh, currently serving as the coach of the Indian men’s junior hockey team is the only sportsperson to be honored with Padma Bhushan for year 2025 in recognition of his contributions to hockey in India.

• With this, he became only the 2nd Indian hockey player to be bestowed with Padma Bhushan after the legendary Major Dhyan Chand honoured with the award in 1956.

ii.Renowned economist Bibek Debroy who served as Chairman of Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister (EAC-PM) and Sushil Kumar Modi, former Deputy Chief Minister (Dy CM) of Bihar; and Manohar Joshi, former CM of Maharashtra (from 1995-1999), were posthumously honoured  with award.

iii.Distinguished recipients of Padma Bhushan award include: famous Tamil Actor S. Ajith Kumar, Ghazal singer Pankaj Udhas (Posthumous), renowned filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, among others.

Padma Shri (113):

Eminent Personalities who are honored with Padma Shri:

i.Former Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is among 4 sports personalities to receive Padma Shri for year 2025. He is the second-highest wicket-taker for India in cricket with 765 scalps.

• Other sports personalities selected for the Padma Shri: IM Vijayan, former Captain of Indian Football team; Harvinder Singh, double Paralympic medalist; and Satyapal Singh, coach of the Indian Para-athletics team.

ii.Arunadhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson and CEO of Salesforce has been named for this year PadmaShri award for her distinguished services in ‘Trade and Industry’ category.

• She was the 1st woman to chair India’s largest Public Sector Bank (PSB), State Bank of India (SBI) from 2013 to 2017.

iii.This year total 12 distinguished personalities from North-East (NE) region have been selected for Padma Shri: L. Hangthing, a fruit farmer from Noklak, Nagaland, with over 30 years of experience of cultivating non-native fruits;

• Naren Gurung, famous folk artist from Gangtok (Sikkim) devoted 60 years to preserve and promote Sikkimese Nepali folk music and dance traditions;
• Jumde Yomgam Gamlin from AR, worked for de-addiction and social reform for local communities for last 30 years, among others.

iv.Other notable winners: P. Datchanamoorthy, an instrumentalist specializing in Thavil (a classical percussion instrument fundamental to South Indian music and culture); Jagdish Joshila, a renowned Nimadi and Hindi author from Khargone with experience of over 50 years; famous playback singer Arijit Singh and 3-time Grammy award-winning musician, Rickey Gyan Kei, among others.

Note: Among the states, Maharashtra received the highest number of Padma awards (14) for year 2025, followed by TN (13), UP (10), Karnataka and WB (9 each) and Gujarat and Bihar (8 each).

About Padma Awards:

i.Padma Awards are one of the highest civilian awards in India after”Bharat Ratna’’.

ii.Padma Awards are given in different fields of activities including art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature, education, sports, civil service, among others.

ii.Padma Awards are given in 3 different categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.

• Padma Vibhushan: is India’s second- highest civilian honour and is given for exceptional and distinguished service.
• Padma Bhushan: is 3rd highest civilian award is given for distinguished service of high order.
• Padma Shri: is 4th highest civilian award and is given for distinguished service in any field.

Background of Padma Awards:

i.Government of India (GoI) established the Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan as two civilian honours in 1954.

ii.Initially, Padma Vibhushan was classified in 3 different categories: Pahela Varg, Dusra Varg and Tisra Varg.

iii.Later, These 3 classes were renamed as Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri on January 8, 1955 as per Presidential notification.

Note: These awards have been given annually since their inception, except in 1978, 1979 and 1993-1997.

Conferment of Awards:

i.Padma Awards are announced every year on Republic Day and its official ceremony held in Rashtrapati Bhavan tentatively in the month of March or April.

ii.The recipients receive a medallion made up of bronze but embossing on them is done with different metals and Sanad (Certificate) that is signed by the President.

iii.The total number of awards given in a year should not exceed 120 which excludes awards given posthumously and awards to NRIs, foreigners and OCIs.

iv.The award cannot be added as a prefix or suffix to the recipient’s name and is not equal to a title.

About Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA):
Union Minister- Amit Shah (Constituency- Gandhinagar, Gujarat)
Minister of State (MoS)- Nityanand Rai(Constituency- Ujiarpur, Bihar); Bandi Sanjay Kumar (Constituency- Karimnagar, Telangana)