List of Padma Bhushan award recipients (1970–1979)

[1] Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service of a high order", without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex.

[2] The recipients receive a Sanad, a certificate signed by the President of India and a circular-shaped medallion with no monetary association.

On 31 July, the newly formed government retracted all the civilian awards including the Padma Bhushan deeming them "worthless and politicized".

Individuals from nine different fields were awarded, which includes forty-eight from literature and education, forty-three from civil services, thirty-four artists, twenty-six from science and engineering, twenty-one from social work, seventeen from medicine, twelve from trade and industry, three from public affairs, and one sportsperson.

Novelist Khushwant Singh, who accepted the award in 1974 in the field of literature and education, returned it in 1984 as a notion of protest against the Operation Blue Star.

Young smiling Indian woman wearing a sari.
Kumari Kamala (awarded in 1970) is known for her classical Bharat Natyam dance performances on stage and in Hindi and Tamil films like Kismet (1943), Ram Rajya (1943) and Naam Iruvar (1948). She also performed at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Later in the late 1970s she took to teaching in the New York and New Jersey areas and was honoured with the National Heritage Fellowship (2010). [ 9 ]
Black and white profile photograph of a man.
Purushottam Kashinath Kelkar (awarded in 1970), an electrical engineer by qualification from the University of Liverpool is known for his works related to IIT Bombay (IITB) and IIT Kanpur (IITK). He collaborated with Soviet engineers as the chief planning officer of IITB in the early years of its establishment and later collaborated with nine American institutes headed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology to help establish IITK, becoming its first director. [ 10 ]
Black and white portrait photograph of a young woman.
Regarded as the "doyenne of Kirana gharana ", [ 11 ] Gangubai Hangal (awarded in 1971) was a Hindustani classical singer and student of Sawai Gandharva . Her career spanned over eight decades and included singing for Marathi films, studio and radio recordings and various stage concerts. [ 12 ]
Black and white profile photograph of a woman.
D. K. Pattammal (awarded in 1971) was one of the early Brahmin caste female singers to perform Carnatic music in public which was against social norms. [ 13 ] Along with M. S. Subbulakshmi and M. L. Vasanthakumari , she was counted in "the classical triumvirate". [ 14 ]
Black and white profile photograph of an old man in white beard and dark hair.
Camille Bulcke (awarded in 1974) arrived in India in 1935 as a missionary of the Roman Catholic Church and with an interest in Indian philosophy and literature studied the Hindi language . Earning MA and D.Phil. from University of Allahabad on his subject Ramkatha: Utpatti aur Vikas (The tale of Rama: its origin and development), he further went on to write various Hindi-English dictionaries and glossary books and headed the Hindi department of St. Xavier's College, Ranchi . [ 15 ]
Black and white photograph of an old man singing.
Mallikarjun Mansur (awarded in 1976) was an exponent of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana of Hindustani classical music . Mansur was a recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Hindustani Music (1971) and the Kalidas Samman from the Government of Madhya Pradesh (1981). He was elected the Fellow of the Sangeet Natak Akademi "[f]or his eminence in the field of music and his contribution to its enrichment" in 1982. [ 16 ]
Close up of an old semi bald man wearing broad black framed glasses.
Scientist and educator Yash Pal (awarded in 1976) has worked on various projects implementing technological advances into telecommunication; the most notable being usage of satellite-based television for rural education. He has also held various administrative positions like being chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University . He also won the Marconi Prize in 1980. [ 17 ]
Photograph of a bald man wearing white shirt.
Known for his contributions to the development of space technology in the country, space scientist Udupi Ramachandra Rao (awarded in 1976) was the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (1984–1994). Rao became the first Indian Space Scientist to be inducted into the "Satellite Hall of Fame" by the Society of Satellite Professionals International and the International Astronautics Federation. [ 18 ]
Old man drinking from a white cup in his hand.
Theoretical physicist E. C. George Sudarshan (awarded in 1976) is best known for his quantum optics theory popular as Glauber–Sudarshan P representation . While Roy J. Glauber received the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics , exclusion of Sudarshan for his contributions has met criticism. [ 19 ]