it wasnt just celebrated personages from tamil nadu who made it to the prestigious list of padma winners for the year but those who work away from the spotlight as wellwhile the list of eight awardees from the state includes singer k j yesudas originally from kerala the poster boy of indian paralympics mariyappan thangavelu famous spiritual leader jaggi vasudev and the late political commentatoractorwriter cho ramaswamy it also features social worker nivedita raghunath bhide the didi or big sister of the vivekananda kendra kanyakumari and writerhistorianactivist the frenchborn coimbatoresettled michel danino who works towards promoting indias heritagephysician and microbiologist dr suniti solomon whose name is synonymous with aids research and prevention in india has been awarded the padma shri posthumously dr solomon who had detected the first cases of aids in the country had died at the age of 76 in 2015the other posthumous recipient is the journalist actor and writer cho ramaswamy who died in december 2016 at the of 82 known for his fearless criticism of political figures in his plays and magazine tughlak he was also the sole padma bhushan awardee from the statewhile yesudas has won all three of the padma awards sadhguru jaggi vasudev was directly given the padma vibhushanthe founder of the isha foundation felt the honour was a recognition of the work of all the volunteers of isha involved in transmitting the science of inner wellbeing particularly the tamil people who have executed largescale projects in education health and ecologythe oldest among the awardees from the state this year is 93yearold padma shri mridangist t k murthy who according to his fans students and colleagues devoted his life to his instrument though the honour came at the fag end of his career murthy was happy that his contribution to music was recognised the word has come late but it is heartening that at least now the government thought of giving him the honour his son t k jayaram said from a family of court musicians in thiruvananthapuram murthy performed with legendary carnatic vocalist m s subbulakhsmi for 55 yearspadma shri recipient bhide could not be reached but raghunathan nair secretary vivekananda kendra kanyakumari spoke about the big sister of the association who never stopped working for the cause of womens empowerment and the socially neglected ever since she witnessed a onerupee collection drive to build the vivekananda rock memorial in kanyakumari she was a child then but it made her realise that just like one rupee can make a big difference so can a person if he works for a cause says nair teacher social worker and author 58yearold bhide now vicepresident of the kendra joined it in 1977 and dedicated her life to the cause sinceacademic michel danino a specialist in indian history and science is a french national who left his country in 1977 and settled here the 2017 padma shri awar dees theory of indigenous aryans which scraps the previously propagated aryan invasion theory has been