Padma awards event deferred, no new dates announced yet
NEWDELHI: The Padma Award ceremonies, scheduled to be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi on March 26 and April 3, have been postponed due to coronavirus outbreak, home ministry officials said Sunday.
The next date and time of the award ceremony will be announced soon, added the officials. The Padma Awards were announced on the eve of Republic Day. As many as 141 Padma Awards, including four duo cases (in a duo case, the award is counted as one), will be handed over this year.
The list comprises seven Padma Vibhushan, 16 Padma Bhushan and 118 Padma Shri Awards.
Among those named for the Padma Vibhushan this year are former Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and George Fernandes (all posthumous). Vishveshateertha Swamiji Sri Pejavara Adhokhaja of Udupi Mutt will be honoured with similar award posthumously in the spiritual category.
The Padma Bhushan awardees include former defence minister Manohar Parrikar (posthumous) and former governor S C Jamir.
As many as 33 awardees this year are women and the list includes 18 persons from foreigners category, NRI, PIO, OCI and 12 posthumous awardees.
The awards are given in various disciplines and fields of activities like art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc.
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. these seven countries and were scanned for coronavirus. Of these, two were identified and quarantined under category B. 15-20 others who were found hiding their travel itinerary were asked to go under self quarantine as they fall under category A. Five others, from Frankfurt, Germany, were also in category B and were sent to government quarantine facility from the airport,” the officer added.
The categories of passengers have been divided on the basis of severity of symptoms, as issued by the APHO.
While category A comprises the high--risk passengers, requiring mandatory segregation and isolation, who are directly sent to hospitals, those under category B pose a moderate risk, and need to be shifted to dedicated state government’s quarantine facility.
Passengers in category C, with low risk, need to be kept under home quarantine and are monitored.
Last week, arrangements were made at Delhi airport to completely isolate passengers arriving Delhi airport from 12 countries -- China, South Korea, Japan, Iran, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Nepal and Indonesia. Their baggage belt, immigration counters, customs clearance area and pick and drop point outside the international arrival terminal were segregated from other passengers.