Padma Awards 2024: Parbati Barua, India’s first female elephant mahout among winners
Indian government on Thursday released the list of winners of Padma Awards 2024 on the eve of Republic Day and prominent among the winners is Parbati Baruah, India’s first female elephant mahout.
Barua had hogged limelight after BBC came out with documentary on her life, ‘Queen Of Elephants’ and she is also the member of IUCN’s Asian Elephant Specialist Group.
Barua is from erstwhile Baruas royal family of Gauripur in Goalpara district of Assam and she is the only elephant trainer (mahaut) in the world.
India’s 1″ female elephant mahout, who overcame stereotypes to create a space for her in a traditionally male-dominated field and she has been conferred with Padma Shri award.
She had started taming the wild huskers at the age of 14 to overcame stereotypes and stood out for her commitment towards mitigating human-elephant conflict with help of application of scientific practices.
Barua had assisted 3 state governments to tackle & capture wild elephants as she had inherited the skills from her father. Her relentless efforts over 4 decades have played a vital role in saving & shaping the lives of many rogue tuskers.
Despite coming from a well-off background, she chose to live a simple life, dedicating it to serve the complex yet playful creature.
For the year 2024, the President has approved conferment of 132 Padma Awards and it includes 5 Padma Vibhushan, 17 Padma Bhushan and 110 Padma Shri Awards.
30 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 8 persons from the category of Foreigners / NRI / PIO / OCI and 9 Posthumous awardees.
Padma Vibhushan Award winners
Vyjayantimala Bali Art Tamil Nadu
Konidela Chiranjeevi Art Andhra Pradesh
M Venkaiah Naidu Public Affairs Andhra Pradesh
Bindeshwar Pathak (Posthumous) Social Work Bihar
Padma Subrahmanyam Art Tamil Nadu
Padma Bhushan Award Winners
M Fathima Beevi (Posthumous) Public Affairs Kerala
Hormusji N Cama Literature & Education – Journalism Maharashtra
Mithun Chakraborty Art West Bengal
Sitaram Jindal Trade & Industry Karnataka
Young Liu Trade & Industry Taiwan
Ashwin Balachand Mehta Medicine Maharashtra
Satyabrata Mookherjee (Posthumous) Public Affairs West Bengal
Ram Naik Public Affairs Maharashtra
Tejas Madhusudan Patel Medicine Gujarat
Olanchery Rajagopal Public Affairs Kerala
Dattatray Ambadas Mayaloo alias Rajdutt Art Maharashtra
Togdan Rinpoche (Posthumous) Others – Spiritualism Ladakh
Pyarelal Sharma Art Maharashtra
Chandreshwar Prasad Thakur Medicine Bihar
Usha Uthup Art West Bengal
Vijaykanth (Posthumous) Art Tamil Nadu
Kundan Vyas Literature & Education – Journalism Maharashtra
Padma Shri Award winners
Khalil Ahamad Art Uttar Pradesh
Badrappan M Art Tamil Nadu
Kaluram Bamaniya Art Madhya Pradesh
Rezwana Choudhury Bannya Art Bangladesh
Naseem Bano Art Uttar Pradesh
Ramlal Bareth Art Chhattisgarh
Gita Roy Barman Art West Bengal
Parbati Baruah Social Work Assam
Sarbeswar Basumatary Others – Agriculture Assam
Som Datt Battu Art Himachal Pradesh
Takdira Begum Art West Bengal
Sathyanarayana Beleri Others – Agriculture Kerala
Drona Bhuyan Art Assam
Ashok Kumar Biswas Art Bihar
Rohan Machanda Bopanna Sports Karnataka
Smriti Rekha Chakma Art Tripura
Narayan Chakraborty Science & Engineering West Bengal
A Velu Ananda Chari Art Telangana
Ram Chet Chaudhary Science & Engineering Uttar Pradesh
K Chellammal Others – Agriculture Andaman & Nicobar Islands
Joshna Chinappa Sports Tamil Nadu
Charlotte Chopin Others – Yoga France
Raghuveer Choudhary Literature & Education Gujarat
Joe D Cruz Literature & Education Tamil Nadu
Ghulam Nabi Dar Art Jammu & Kashmir
Chitta Ranjan Debbarma Others – Spiritualism Tripura
Uday Vishwanath Deshpande Sports Maharashtra
Prema Dhanraj Medicine Karnataka
Radha Krishan Dhiman Medicine Uttar Pradesh
Manohar Krishana Dole Medicine Maharashtra
Pierre Sylvain Filliozat Literature & Education France
Mahabir Singh Guddu Art Haryana
Anupama Hoskere Art Karnataka
Yazdi Maneksha Italia Medicine Gujarat
Rajaram Jain Literature & Education Uttar Pradesh
Jankilal Art Rajasthan
Ratan Kahar Art West Bengal
Yashwant Singh Kathoch Literature & Education Uttarakhand
Zahir I Kazi Literature & Education Maharashtra
Gaurav Khanna Sports Uttar Pradesh
Surendra Kishore Literature & Education – Journalism Bihar
Dasari Kondappa Art Telangana
Sridhar Makam Krishnamurthy Literature & Education Karnataka
Yanung Jamoh Lego Others – Agriculture Arunachal Pradesh
Jordan Lepcha Art Sikkim
Satendra Singh Lohia Sports Madhya Pradesh
Binod Maharana Art Odisha
Purnima Mahato Sports Jharkhand
Uma Maheshwari D Art Andhra Pradesh
Dukhu Majhi Social Work West Bengal
Ram Kumar Mallick Art Bihar
Hemchand Manjhi Medicine Chhattisgarh
Chandrashekhar Mahadeorao Meshram Medicine Maharashtra
Surendra Mohan Mishra (Posthumous) Art Uttar Pradesh
Ali Mohammed & Ghani Mohammed* (Duo) Art Rajasthan
Kalpana Morparia Trade & Industry Maharashtra
Chami Murmu Social Work Jharkhand
Sasindran Muthuvel Public Affairs Papua New Guinea
G Nachiyar Medicine Tamil Nadu
Kiran Nadar Art Delhi
Pakaravur Chithran Namboodiripad (Posthumous) Literature & Education Kerala
Narayanan E P Art Kerala
Shailesh Nayak Science & Engineering Delhi
Harish Nayak (Posthumous) Literature & Education Gujarat
Fred Negrit Literature & Education France
Hari Om Science & Engineering Haryana
Bhagabat Padhan Art Odisha
Sanatan Rudra Pal Art West Bengal
Shankar Baba Pundlikrao Papalkar Social Work Maharashtra
Radhe Shyam Pareek Medicine Uttar Pradesh
Dayal Mavjibhai Parmar Medicine Gujarat
Binod Kumar Pasayat Art Odisha
Silbi Passah Art Meghalaya
Shanti Devi Paswan & Shivan Paswan* (Duo) Art Bihar
Sanjay Anant Patil Others – Agriculture Goa
Muni Narayana Prasad Literature & Education Kerala
K S Rajanna Social Work Karnataka
Chandrashekar Channapatna Rajannachar Medicine Karnataka
Bhagwatilal Rajpurohit Literature & Education Madhya Pradesh
Romalo Ram Art Jammu & Kashmir
Navjivan Rastogi Literature & Education Uttar Pradesh
Nirmal Rishi Art Punjab
Pran Sabharwal Art Punjab
Gaddam Sammaiah Art Telangana
Sangthankima Social Work Mizoram
Machihan Sasa Art Manipur
Omprakash Sharma Art Madhya Pradesh
Eklabya Sharma Science & Engineering West Bengal
Ram Chander Sihag Science & Engineering Haryana
Harbinder Singh Sports Delhi
Gurvinder Singh Social Work Haryana
Godawari Singh Art Uttar Pradesh
Ravi Prakash Singh Science & Engineering Mexico
Seshampatti T Sivalingam Art Tamil Nadu
Somanna Social Work Karnataka
Kethavath Somlal Literature & Education Telangana
Shashi Soni Trade & Industry Karnataka
Urmila Srivastava Art Uttar Pradesh
Nepal Chandra Sutradhar (Posthumous) Art West Bengal
Gopinath Swain Art Odisha
Laxman Bhatt Tailang Art Rajasthan
Maya Tandon Social Work Rajasthan
Aswathi Thirunal Gouri Lakshmi Bayi Thampuratty Literature & Education Kerala
Jagdish Labhshanker Trivedi Art Gujarat
Sano Vamuzo Social Work Nagaland
Balakrishnan Sadanam Puthiya Veetil Art Kerala
Kurella Vittalacharya Literature & Education Telangana
Kiran Vyas Others – Yoga France
Jageshwar Yadav Social Work Chhattisgarh
Babu Ram Yadav Art Uttar Pradesh
