Dr Hemant KumarPadma Shri, 2025 — NephrologyBihar’s first DM nephrologist, and the man who treated kidneys as if they belonged to family. Jamalpur, Munger — a modest house. A schoolboy who went with his parents to hospitals and saw people waiting without hope. He decided then that medicine would be the way he served. MBBS […]

Dr (Prof.) Neerja BhatlaPadma Shri, 2025 — Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Gynaecologic OncologyThe first Indian to chair FIGO’s gynaecologic oncology committee — and the woman who spent thirty-five years trying to make cervical cancer unnecessary. Born 2 January 1959. MBBS from AIIMS Delhi in 1982, MD in 1985, faculty from 1989. She rose to Professor and […]

Prof. Soniya NityanandPadma Shri, 2025 — Clinical Haematology and Stem Cell TransplantationIndia’s first woman bone-marrow transplant specialist — and the daughter who brought a second Padma Shri into the same Lucknow house. 6 September 1962, Lucknow. Her father, Dr Nitya Anand, had crossed from West Punjab at Partition and spent a lifetime at CDRI inventing […]

In the winter of 2026, when the Republic Day honours were announced and later conferred by President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan, fifteen names from the world of medicine and healing stood out among the 131 Padma Awards. Two received the Padma Bhushan. Thirteen received the Padma Shri. Together they formed a living map of […]

Dr Kallipatti Ramasamy PalaniswamyPadma Shri, 2007 · Padma Bhushan, 2026 — GastroenterologyThe boy from Kallipatti who built North Chennai a stomach department — then spent forty years teaching the country how to look inside it without cutting it open. 15 March 1949, Kallipatti, Erode — an agricultural house, a remote village. MBBS from Mysore University […]

Dr Dattatreyudu NoriPadma Shri, 2015 · Padma Bhushan, 2026 — Radiation OncologyThe village boy from Mantada who taught the world to place radiation inside a tumour — and then came home to tell two Telugu states that some cancers need not arrive at all. 1947, Mantada, Krishna district. Schooling in Machilipatnam. MBBS from Kurnool Medical […]

Dr Armida FernandezPadma Shri, 2026 — Neonatology and Urban Public HealthThe mother of Indian neonatology — the woman who taught a municipal hospital how to keep a premature baby alive, then walked out of the air-conditioned ward and into Dharavi. Born Armida Menezes in Dharwad, 1942 or 1943, daughter of the Goan poet-civil servant Armando […]

Dr Guduru Venkat RaoPadma Shri, 2026 — Surgical GastroenterologyThe Hyderabad boy who almost became a vet — then took an appendix out through the mouth, and taught a generation that a scar is not the price of a life. Born 15 June 1960, middle-class Hyderabad, one sister, three brothers. Hyderabad Public School, Ramanthapur, class of […]

Dr H. V. HandePadma Shri, 2026 — MedicineNinety-eight years old, three hours a day in Shenoy Nagar, still treating whoever walks in — and still covering the bus fare home. 28 November 1927, Coimbatore. One of ten children of a government surgeon under the Raj; ancestral roots in Kota Handattu, near Udupi, and Mangalore. School […]

Dr Padma GurmetPadma Shri, 2026 — Sowa-Rigpa (Medicine)The Amchi’s son who was reluctant to inherit the pulse of the high desert — and then made that pulse an official system of Indian medicine. Born 15 April 1971, Ladakh. Before hospitals reached the plateau, healthcare lived in the family. His father was an Amchi — a […]

Dr Natesan PunniamurthyPadma Shri, 2026 — Veterinary Medicine (Ethno-Veterinary Science)The farm boy from Vallam who taught a cow to heal with aloe, turmeric and lime — and taught a nation that clean milk begins in a clean udder, not a bottle of antibiotic. 6 March 1957, Vallam village, Thanjavur. Agrarian house. School in Thanjavur and […]

Dr Kewal Krishan ThakralPadma Shri, 2026 — Ayurvedic Surgery (Shalya–Shalakya)The Partition child who made a medicated thread, and a small puncture at the ear, acceptable to a country that had almost forgotten its own surgeons. Born 10 October 1938, Sargodha — then British India, now Pakistan. The family crossed in 1947 and rebuilt in Yamunanagar. […]

Dr Palkonda Vijay Anand ReddyPadma Shri, 2026 — OncologyThe Palamuru boy who turned down a London job, came home after his father died, and spent three decades telling parents that even the eye can grow a cancer — and that a white glow in a photograph can still be caught in time. Born 20 October […]

Dr Prateek SharmaPadma Shri, 2026 — GastroenterologyThe Vadodara graduate who made Barrett’s oesophagus a language the world could share — Prague criteria on the scope, risk on the page — and then came home, briefly, to take a medal for a life spent in Kansas City. Born in Chandigarh; raised in Vadodara. Parents from Punjab […]

Dr Ramchandra Godbole and Smt Suneeta GodbolePadma Shri, 2026 — Medicine (joint award)Seven days after the wedding they left Maharashtra for Barsur. The forest called him Doctor Bhaiya. She learned Gondi and Halbi so the women would not have to speak through a stranger. He is a BAMS graduate from Satara. She took her MSW […]

Prof. Shyam SundarPadma Shri, 2026 — Medicine (Infectious Diseases / Kala-azar)The Muzaffarpur boy who gave a neglected fever a strip test, an oral pill, and a single drip — and watched the case count fall from tens of thousands to a few hundred. Born 30 November 1953, Muzaffarpur. District school. Banaras Hindu University for everything […]

Dr Suresh HanagavadiPadma Shri, 2026 — Medicine (Haemophilia care)The Class 9 boy outside a Harihar OPD whose uncle said, This is why you must become a doctor — and who spent the first internship salary registering a society so no family would lose someone for lack of care. Severe haemophilia B from childhood. Mother a […]

Prof. (Dr) Saroj MandalPadma Shri, 2026 — Interventional CardiologyThe Kolkata unit head who put twenty-two pacemakers in in nine hours on an ordinary working day at SSKM — and spent the rest of the years taking the same urgency to the village by wire. Born 15 September 1967. MBBS, University of Calcutta, 1994. MD Medicine. […]

Pune in the early 1950s still treated psychiatry as something whispered about in corridors. Hospitals had wards. Families had secrets. Women doctors were rare enough. A woman who wanted to sit across from patients in her own consulting room, listen to their fears, and charge a fee for it? That was almost unthinkable. Roshen Master […]