71st Republic Day: 21 people, who will be recognised for their yeomen services in their fields of excellence, include Mohammed Sharif, Jagdish Lal Ahuja, Tulsi Gowda, Javed Ahmad Tek and (late) Abdul Jabbar.
Names of people to be awarded India’s second highest civilian honour, the Padma awards, on the 71st Republic Day by the President of India have been announced on Saturday evening.
21 people, who will be recognised for their yeomen services in their fields of excellence, include Mohammed Sharif, Jagdish Lal Ahuja, Tulsi Gowda, Javed Ahmad Tek and (late) Abdul Jabbar.
80-years old Mohammed Sharif, fondly called ‘Chacha Sharif’ will be conferred with Padma Shri for selflessly performing the last rites of thousands of unclaimed dead bodies for the last 25 years in and around Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh, despite his meagre income as a bicycle mechanic.
Sharif is considered to be an epitome of communal harmony, who always took care of the deceased’s religious beliefs and performed the last rites accordingly.
Sharif will be joined in receiving the Padma Shri by 84-years old cancer patient and a erstwhile refugee from Pakistan, Jagdish Lal Ahuja, who has spent the last 15-years of his life serving free food to hundreds of poor patients and attendants outside Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh. Ahuja, had started serving free food in the 1980s and moved to PGIMER in 2000. He sold off his properties worth crore to chase his heart’s calling. He also provides patients other support, from financial assistance to blankets and clothes.
46-years old, Javed Ahmad Tak from Anantnag in Kashmir, will be another worthy receipient of Padma Shri award tomorrow. The specially-abled social Worker, who is wheelchair-ridden after receiving a spinal in a militant attack, has been working with specially-abled children for the last two decades and has established Humanity Welfare Organization, Kashmir and Zaiba Aapa School for the children with special needs, which provides free education, material aid & motivation to more than 100 such children.
The republic day will also see the late activist, who held a 35- year-long struggle to get justice to the victims and survivors of the Bhopal Gas tragedy, Madhya Pradesh’s Abdul Jabar, being awarded with Padma Shri (posthumously)
Jabar Provided vocational training to 2,300 widows of men who perished in the gas leak and filed several cases fighting for medical rehabilitation of victims. The Bhopal Gas leak, from a Union Carbide plant had killed more than 3,500 people in 1982.
Rajasthan’s 53-year old Usha Chaumar, will also be given Padma Shri tomorrow. Chaumar is a former manual scavenger, who eventually became the President of Sulabh International, an organisation leading the fight for sanitation in India and abroad. Chaumar, now has become the voice fighting against the practice of manual scavenging.
72-year old Tulasi Gowda from Karnataka, may be an illeterate, but is not short on rare wisdom. This Tribal woman has unmatched knowledge of plants and herbs and is rightly called the ‘Encyclopedia of Forest’. Despite being poor and from a backward community, she has planted and nursed thousands of trees over the past 60 years. She will also be awarded with Padma Shri tomorrow.
The inspiring list of Padma awardees also includes Sathyanarayan Mundayoor from Arunachal, Popatrao Pawar and Rahibai Soma Popere from Maharashtra, Harekala Hajabba from Karnataka, Arunoday Mondal from West Bengal, Radha Mohan & Sabarmatee from Odisha, Kushal Konwar Sarma from Assam, Trinity Saioo from Meghalaya, Ravi Kannan from Assam, S Ramakrishnan from Tamil Nadu, Sundaram Verma, Himmata Ram Bhambhu and Munna Master from Rajasthan, Yogi Aeron from Uttarakhand and Moozhikkal Pankajakshi from Kerala.