Nine from Karnataka win Padma awards

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: As many as nine natives of Karnataka were among the 139 Padma Award recipients announced on Saturday. Two of the nine awardees from the state are women. Karnataka native and violin maestro Lakshminarayana Subramaniam was honored with the Padma Vibhushan. Veteran journalist A. Surya Prakash from the state received the Padma Bhushan, as did Kannada movie actor Anant Nag.

The seven Padma Shri awardees from Karnataka include Grammy Awardwinning music composer Ricky Kej, 95-year-old Bhimavva Doddabalappa Shillekyathar, who gained fame for retelling the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata through puppetry, martial arts coach and Kannada action director Hassan Raghu, venture capitalist Prashanth Prakash, 81-year-old Gondhali folk singer Venkappa Ambaji Sugatekar, and Vijayalakshmi Deshamane, who dedicated her life to raising awareness and preventing breast cancer.