By Parveen Chopra, IANS
New York : The Indian Americans named for the Padma awards feel proud to be honoured by their home country and ascribe a large number of the civilian awards for NRIs this year to the increased visibility of the diaspora in India.
In a record of sorts, the award list announced Friday has 11 NRIs, nine of whom live in the US. They account for five Padma Bhushan and four Padma Shri awardees.
Padma Desai, an economics professor at Columbia University in New York who has been nominated for Padma Bhushan, told IANS: “I am delighted to be honoured by India and also feel proud to have broken into what I thought was a male preserve in my husband’s family.”
Her husband and fellow Columbia don, Jagdish Bhagwati, and brother-in-law, former chief justice P.N. Bhagwati, both have been honoured with Padma Vibhushans.
Kaushik Basu, an economist at Cornell University and author who has been named for Padma Bhushan, said: “It feels extra good to be honoured by one’s own country. I feel very connected as I visit India every three months or so.”
On the large number of NRIs in the Padma awards list this year, Basu said: “It is a recognition of Indians doing good work no matter where there are located.”
Srinivasa S.R. Varadhan, a mathematician with New York University who is to receive the Padma Bhushan, said: “The Indian diaspora is becoming more visible back home.
“The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (an annual conclave of Indian diaspora organised by the Indian government) has helped in this regard,” added Varadhan, a 2007 laureate of the prestigious Abel prize, given to a mathematician annually by Norway.
Nirupam Bajpai, named among the Padma Shri awardees, is director of the South Asia Programme, Centre on Globalisation and Sustainable Development at The Earth Institute, Columbia University.
“The honour is an encouragement for us at Columbia focussing on India’s economy and economic reforms,” he said.
An economic adviser to the Indian prime minister and other cabinet ministers, Bajpai said so many Indians in the US and elsewhere are doing extraordinary work and making a name for themselves as well as for India.
Two other Indian Americans on the Padma Bhushan list this year are astronaut Sunita Williams and Vikram Pandit, who took over as Citigroup’s chief executive last month.
There are three more on the Padma Shri list. Manoj Night Shyamalan is a Hollywood scriptwriter and director.
Madhuri Dixit, former Bollywood queen who made a comeback last year with “Aaja Nachle”, lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband Shriram Nene, a cardiothoracic surgeon, and two children.
Sant Singh Virmani is a renowned rice scientist who retired in 2005 as senior scientist with the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.