Several prominent business leaders have been honoured with Padma awards this Republic Day.
Among the 118 awardees, 11 are from business backgrounds. The most prominent name in the list was Anand Mahindra, who was awarded the Padma Bhushan, which is the third highest civilian award in the country. “Sir, (thanks) for recognising our Rise philosophy—trying to do well AND do good. And there’s an old saying: If you see a turtle on top of a fence, you know for sure it didn’t get there on its own! I stand on the shoulders of all Mahindraites. I will convey your compliments to them!” Mahindra wrote in response to a tweet by PM Narendra Modi congratulating all award winners.
Sir, ?????? for recognising our Rise philosophy—trying to do well AND do good. And there’s an old saying: If you see a turtle on top of a fence, you know for sure it didn’t get there on its own! I stand on the shoulders of all Mahindraites. I will convey your compliments to them! https://t.co/VzckGJGEzE
— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) January 25, 2020
Among the winners of the Padma Shri was Info Edge founder Sanjeev Bhikchandani. Info Edge is a digital behemoth, running online portals Naukri.com, Jeevansathi.com, Shiksha.com and 99acres.com. The company is also a prominent investor in startups — at one point, it was the largest investor in Zomato, and is also an early investor in Policy Bazaar. “Honoured and privileged to find my name in the Padma Shri list,” wrote Bhikchandani on Twitter. “While I have been given this award the truth is I owe it to the joint efforts and support of so many other people – colleagues, friends and family. Proud to represent the start up entrepreneur community in this list,” he said.
Honoured and privileged to find my name in the Padma Shri list.
While I have been given this award the truth is I owe it to the joint efforts and support of so many other people – colleagues, friends and family.
Proud to represent the start up entrepreneur community in this list— Sanjeev Bikhchandani (@sbikh) January 25, 2020
Another name on the Padma Shri awardee list was Tally founder Bharat Goenka. Tally is the industry standard for accounting in India, and is perhaps older than most tech businesses in the country. It had been founded all the way back in 1986 as an MS-DOS application. Today, Tally has cloud versions, but continues to retain a large part of the marketshare in the accounting business.
The list honoured several leaders from non-tech businesses as well. Among those who won Padma Shris were TVS Motors Chairman Venu Srinivasan, Surya Roshni chairman Jai Prakash Agarwal, and Prestige Group chairman Nemnath Jain. Another awardee was Indo-Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa, who’s the founder of the insurance group Fairfax Holdings.