India celebrates its 60th Republic Day

Posted by on Jan 26, 2009 in India

India celebrated its 60th Republic Day today with the President Pratibha Patil taking the salute from marching contingents at the Rajpath in the National Capital New Delhi. The celebrations in New Delhi were held under extremely tight security conditions following yesterday’s encounter of two Pakistani terrorists in Noida which indicated a possible terror strike today. The grand parade showing not only the colouwas witnessed by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev who was the Chief Guest for the day along with other dignitaries. The Defence Minister A.K.Anthony substituted for the indisposed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in performing the customary duties.

The day began with India remembering and honouring martyrs from the Police and the Armed Forces with the Ashok Chakra award which is the country’s highest peace-time gallantry medal. They were other awards such as Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri that were given by the Government of India. Notable among the winners was Abhinav Bindra who was honoured with the Padma Bhushan for winning India’s first ever individual gold medal in Olympics history.

Ashok Chakra Recipients: Hemant Karkare (Maharashtra ATS chief), Ashok Kamte (Additional commissioner) Inspector Vijay Salaskar, Assistant SI Tukaram Gopal Ombale, NSG Commandos Maj. Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Havildar Gajender Singh (all these six people had sacrificed their lives during the Mumbai Terror attacks), Delhi Police Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma (who laid his life during the Batla House encounter in Delhi), Army Special Forces commando Havildar Bahadur Singh Bohra of 10 Parachute Regiment, Jojan Thomas of Army’s Jat Regiment, Orissa Special Operations Group Commandant Pramod Satpathy and Meghalaya DSP Raymond P Diengdoh

Padma Vibhushan Recipients: Dr Chandrika Prasad Srivastava, Civil Service, Sunderlal Bahuguna, Environment Conservation, Prof D.P. Chattopadhyaya, Literature & Education, Prof. Jasbir Singh Bajaj, Medicine, Dr Purshotam Lal, Medicine, Govind Narain, Public Affairs, Dr Anil Kakodkar, Science & Engineering, G. Madhavan Nair, Science & Engineering, Sister Nirmala, Social Work, Dr A.S. Ganguly, Trade & Industry

Padma Bhushan Recipients: G. Sivarama Krishna Murthy, Prof. Ramanlal C Mehta, Shamshad Begum, V. P. Dhananjayan & Shanta Dhananjayan (Duo), Dr Vaidyanathan Ganapathi Sthapati, S.K. Misra, Shekhar Gupta, Prof. Alappat Sreedhara Menon, C.K. Prahlad, D. Jayakanthan, Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Kunwar Narain, Prof. Minoru Hara, Ramachandra Guha, Dr Brijendra Kumar Rao, Vaidya Devendra Triguna, Dr Khalid Hameed, Lt. Gen (Retd) Satish Nambiar, Dr Inderjit Kaur Barthakur, Dr Kirit Shantilal Parikh, Dr Bhakta B. Rath, Conjeevaram Srirangachari Seshadri, Dr Gurdip Singh Randhawa, Sam Pitroda, Prof. (Dr) Sarvagya Singh Katiyar, Prof. Thomas Kailath, Dr Naganath Nayakawadi, Dr Sarojini Varadappan, Abhinav Bindra, Anil Manibhai Naik

Padma Shri Award Recipients: Thilakan, A. Vivekh, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Dr Ameena Ahmed Ahuja, Aruna Sairam, Devayani Chaymotty, Geeta Kapur, Govind Ram Nirmalkar, Gurumayum Gourakishor Sharma, Hashmat Ullah Khan, Helan Khan, Hemi Bawa, Pandit Hridaynath Mangeshkar, Iravatham Mahadevan, K.P. Udayabhanu, Dr Kanneganti Brahmanandam, Prof. Kiran Seth, Kumar Sanu Bhattacharjee, Prof. Dr Leela Omchery, Mattannoor Sankarankutty Marar, Niranjan Goswami, Bhai Nirmal Singh Khalsa, Penaz Masani, Prakash N Dubey, Dr Pratapaditya Pal, Ram Kishore Chhipa, Saoli Mitra, Late Shri Skendrowell Syiemlieh (Posthumous), Dr Subrahmanyam Krishnaswamy, Suresh Dutta, Shri Tafazzul Ali (Posthumous), Udit Narayan, Vadakka Manalath Govindan alias Kalamandalam Gopi, S.B. Ghosh Dastidar, Ameen Sayani, Abhay Chhajlani, Dr A. Sankara Reddy, Alok Mehta, Dr Bannanje Govindacharya

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