Pejawar Swamiji, Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, George Fernandes awarded Padma Vibhushan posthumously
New Delhi, Jan 25: Former union ministers Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and George Fernandes, Olympian boxer Mary Kom and former Mauritius prime minister Anerood Jugnauth were among seven prominent personalities awarded the Padma Vibhushan on Saturday, the Home Ministry announced.
Former union ministers Arun Jaitley
Famous classical bhajan singer from Varanasi Channulal Mishra and Vishwesha Theertha Swamiji Sri Pejavara Adhokshaja Matha Udupi, who passed away recently, have also been given the highest Padma award--Padma Vibhushan.
Former defence minister Manohar Parrikar, industrialists Anand Mahindra and Venu Shrinivasan, Olympian badminton player P V Sindhu, former Nagaland chief minister S C Jamir and Jammu and Kashmir politician Muzaffar Hussain Baig have been awarded the Padma Bhushan, a home ministry statement said.
The awards are announced on the eve of Republic Day.
Jaitley, Swaraj, Fernandes, Parrikar and Vishwesha Teertha Swami have been awarded posthumously, the officials said.
Former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj
File photo of George Fernandes.
This year the President has approved conferment of 141 Padma awards including four duo cases (in a duo case, the award is counted as one), the statement said.
"Thirty four of the awardees are women and the list also includes 18 persons from the category of Foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI and 12 posthumous awardees," it said.
Padma Awards - one of the highest civilian Awards--are conferred in three categories--Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.
Sixteen people have been given the Padma Bhushan and 118 the Padma Shri.
Padma Vibhushan is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; Padma Bhushan for distinguished service of high order and Padma Shri for distinguished service in any field.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the Padma awardees, saying they include extraordinary people.
"Congratulations to all those who have been conferred the Padma Awards," he tweeted.
From Bollywood, filmmakers Karan Johar and Ekta Kapoor and actor Kangana Ranaut have been awarded Padma Shri.
Singers Suresh Wadkar and Adnan Sami, as well as veteran TV actor Sarita Joshi have been conferred with the fourth highest civilian award of the country.
Six sports persons including cricketer Zaheer Khan, current Indian women's hockey captain Rani Rampal, former Indian men's hockey player M P Ganesh, shooter Jitu Rai, former Indian women's football team captain Oinam Bembem Devi and archer Tarundeep Rai have been given Padma Shri.
Naukri.com founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani, industrialist Bharat Goenka, technocrat Nemnath Jain have been conferred the Padma Shri.
The award has also been given to Lucknow-based historian and journalist Yogesh Praveen and Assam-based historian Jogendra Nath Phukan have been awarded Padma Shri
There are 21 'unsung' heroes who were given Padma Shri this year including Jagdish Lal Ahuja, who serves free food to patients and attendants outside PGI hospital in Chandigarh; Mohammed Sharif from Faizabad, who has performed last rites of over 25,000 unclaimed bodies' and veterinarian from Assam Kushal Konwar Sarma who is known for treating elephants.
Seventy-two-year-old Tulasi Gowda from Karnataka, who earned the sobriquet "encyclopedia of forests" because of her vast knowledge of diverse plants species in spite of lacking formal education, has also been given the award, it said.
Sathyanarayan Mundayoor, known as Uncle Moosa of Arunachal Pradesh, who has been promoting education and reading culture in remote areas of Northeastern states for last four decades; Abdul Jabbar aka 'voice of Bhopal' (posthumously), known for fighting for the cause of victims and survivor of 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy; and Usha Chaumar, a Dalit social worker working in the field of sanitation in Rajasthan, have also been given the award.
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Bill Gates apologises to Foundation staff over Epstein ties: report
New York (PTI): American tech entrepreneur Bill Gates has apologised to the staff at the Gates Foundation over his ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein but maintained that he did “nothing illicit,” according to a media report.
The Microsoft co-founder also admitted that he had two affairs with Russian women and that he made mistakes that had cast a cloud over the philanthropic group while insisting he didn’t participate in Epstein’s crimes, The Wall Street Journal said in an exclusive report on Tuesday.
Gates was among the scores of celebrities, politicians, leaders and tech entrepreneurs shown having connections with the sex offender as was evident in the tens of thousands of documents, including emails, interview transcripts, photos, call logs etc with some names redacted, released online – collectively termed Epstein files - last month by the US Justice Department.
In a town hall on Tuesday, Gates acknowledged that he had two affairs with Russian women that Epstein later discovered, but that they didn’t involve Epstein’s victims. “I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” Gates said, according to a recording reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Gates said images in the recently released Epstein files showing him with women whose faces are redacted were pictures that Epstein asked him to take with Epstein’s assistants after their meetings. “To be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him,” Gates said.
“It was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein” and bring Gates Foundation executives into meetings with the sex offender, Gates said.
“I apologise to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made,” The Wall Street Journal quoted Gates as saying.
The philanthropist said he had met Epstein in 2011, three years after the sex offender had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Gates said he didn't “properly check” Epstein's background even when he was aware of some “18-month thing” that had limited Epstein’s travel and added that he continued meeting with Epstein even after his then-wife Melinda French Gates expressed concerns in 2013.
Speaking of his ex-wife, he added: “To give her credit, she was always kind of skeptical about the Epstein thing.”
The Wall Street Journal further said that Gates told staff on Tuesday that he continued meeting with Epstein through 2014, flew on a private jet with Epstein and spent time with him in Germany, France, New York and Washington. “I never stayed overnight,” he said, or visited Epstein’s island.
Gates admitted that his ties to Epstein and newly disclosed emails from the Justice Department files had cast a cloud over the Gates Foundation and its reputation, the newspaper said.
“It definitely is the opposite of the values of the Foundation and the goals of the Foundation,” he said. “And our work is very reputational sensitive. I mean, people can choose to work with us or not work with us.”
A Gates Foundation spokesperson said Gates holds town halls twice a year and he “spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions.”
The Microsoft co-founder said Epstein “talked about the kind of intimate relationship he had with a lot of billionaires, particularly Wall Street billionaires,” and that he could help raise money for causes like global health.
Gates said because Epstein had other prestigious people at these meetings, that “made it easier for me to feel like this was a normalized situation.” He said he realizes that his association with Epstein also helped the sex offender to burnish his reputation.
In the town hall, Gates also said: “I did have affairs, one with a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities.”
Gates said that 2014 was the last year he met with Epstein.
Epstein, as per the US media reports, killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
