The names of the annual Padma awards recipients—the highest civilian awards in the country after the Bharat Ratna—for 2024 were announced recently.

There are 11 recipients from Bengal this time.

They are as follows: (arranged in alphabetical order under each section)

Padma Bhushan

In the field of art

• Mithun Chakraborty – award-winning actor and former MP
• Usha Uthup – well-known singer with an international reputation

In the field of public affairs

• Satyabrata Mookherjee (Posthumous) – former Bengal BJP chief and Union minister

Padma Shri

In the field of art

• Dukhu Majhi – social activist, has planted over 5,000 banyan, mango and blackberry saplings on the barren lands of Bengal and Jharkhand while raising awareness about climate change, from Sindri village of Purulia district
• Gita Roy Barman – Rajbanshi Bhawaiya singer from Mathabhanga in Cooch Behar district
• Nepal Chandra Sutradhar (Posthumous) – practitioner of the Chhau dance form, from Charida village of Purulia
• Ratan Kahar – Bhadugan singer, known for his chart-topping song ‘Baroloker Biti Lo’, from Siuri in Birbhum district
• Sanatan Rudra Pal – clay modeller from Kumartuli in Kolkata, known for his Durga idols
• Takdira Begum – kantha stitch artist from Jambuni in Bolpur block of Birbhum district

In the field of Science and Engineering

• Dr Eklabya Sharma – ecologist with over four decades of experience in sustainable mountain development, from Kurseong in Darjeeling district; currently serving as the Strategic Advisor and Distinguished Senior Fellow in Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru
• Dr Narayan Chakraborty – scientist; has vast experience in medicinal science, especially in conducting programmes and remediation of arsenic toxicity in water and food; author and columnist; from Kolkata

Besides these people from Bengal, another Bengali has also been awarded a Padma Shri—the famous Rabindrasangeet exponent from Bangladesh, Rezwana Choudhury Bannya.