Eight Achievers from K’taka get Padma Awards 2026; Shatavadhani R. Ganesh get Padma Bhushan
Bengaluru: The Padma Awards for 2026 were announced on Saturday, with eight achievers from Karnataka finding a place on the prestigious list this year.
Renowned scholar and multi-lingual exponent Shatavadhani R. Ganesh has been awarded the Padma Bhushan for his exceptional contribution to the field of art.
Apart from him, seven achievers from Karnataka have been selected for the Padma Shri award. They are:
Anke Gowda of Mandya for social service
S. G. Susheelamma for social service
Shashi Shekhar Vempati for contributions to literature
Dr. Suresh Hanagavadi for work in the field of medicine
T. T. Jagannathan for contributions to trade and industry
Shubha Venkatesha Iyengar for science and engineering
Prabhakar Basavaprabhu Kore for contributions to literature and education
About Padma Bhushan awardee Shatavadhani R. Ganesh
Shatavadhani R. Ganesh, a distinguished multi-lingual scholar, has been conferred the Padma Bhushan for his outstanding contribution to the arts. Born in 1962 in Kolar, he is the son of R. Shankaranarayana Iyer and Alamelamma.
He completed his primary and secondary education in Bengaluru, while his pre-university education was pursued in Gauribidanur. Ganesh holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Visvesvaraya Technological University. He later earned an MSc in Materials Science and Metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Science and went on to complete a postgraduate degree in Sanskrit from the University of Mysore.
Hampi Kannada University honoured him with its first-ever D.Litt degree for his doctoral thesis titled “Avadhana Art in Kannada.” Ganesh has performed Avadhana in eight languages, including Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu. His unique contribution, known as “Chitrakavya,” has been showcased through performances in the United States and several European countries.
He has authored scholarly works such as Shatavadhana Sharade and Shatavadhana Srividye, which explore this rare art form. A master of subjects including poetics, prosody, Vedanta, Upanishads, dharmashastra, Indian philosophy, history, culture, grammar and aesthetics, Ganesh has written over 12 Sanskrit plays, 16 Sanskrit poetry collections, eight Kannada poetry works, and three Kannada novels, besides translating six major works.
Ganesh presented his first Shatavadhana on December 15, 1991, at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Bengaluru. He went on to perform the first complete Kannada Shatavadhana between November 30 and December 2, 2012. On February 16, 2014, he marked a major milestone by presenting his 1,000th Avadhana performance in Bengaluru.
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US service member missing after Iran shot down fighter jet rescued
Washington (AP): A US service member who had been missing since Iran shot down a fighter jet has been rescued, President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post early Sunday.
The crew member had been missing since Friday, when Iran downed a US F-15E Strike Eagle. A second crew member was rescued earlier.
Trump wrote that the aviator is injured but “will be just fine,” adding that he took refuge “on the treacherous mountains of Iran.”
Trump added that the rescue involved “dozens of aircraft” and that US had been monitoring his location “24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.”
The war began with joint US-Israel strikes on February 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened, and hit, civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.
The fighter jet was the first US aircraft to have crashed in Iranian territory since the conflict in late February.
Trump said last week that the US had “decimated” Iran and would finish the war “very fast.”
Two days later, Iran shot down two US military planes, showing the ongoing perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of a degraded Iranian military to continue to hit back.
The other jet to go down was a US A-10 attack aircraft. Neither the status of the crew nor exactly where it crashed was immediately known.
A frantic US search-and-rescue operation unfolded after the crash of the F-15E jet on Friday, focusing on a mountainous region in Iran's southwestern province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad.
Iran also promised a reward for anyone who turned in the “enemy pilot.” Iran's joint military command on Saturday said that it also struck two US Black Hawk helicopters Friday, but The Associated Press couldn't independently verify that.
