Param Vir Chakra & Padma Shri

Kailash Kher is an Indian singer, born in Meerut, whose raw and soulful voice carries the folk idioms of north India into popular cinema and concert halls. He came to wide notice with the album Kailasa.

He has sung in many Indian languages and films, and the Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 2015.

Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom is an Indian boxer from Manipur who has won the World Amateur Boxing Championship six times, more than any other woman boxer. She took bronze at the London Olympics in 2012.

She has competed at the top of the sport for over two decades and has been awarded both the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan.

Captain Vikram Batra was an officer of the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles who fought in the Kargil war of 1999, leading the recapture of Point 5140. He was killed in action weeks later at Point 4875, aged twenty-four.

He was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India’s highest wartime gallantry medal. His service in Kargil remains among the most widely remembered in the country.

Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw was an Indian Army officer whose career spanned five decades and four wars, from the Second World War to the 1971 war that led to Bangladesh’s creation. He was the first Indian Army officer to hold the rank of Field Marshal.

As Chief of the Army Staff he planned and led the 1971 campaign, completed in thirteen days. He received the Padma Vibhushan the same year.

Satyajit Ray was an Indian filmmaker whose first feature, Pather Panchali, opened the Apu Trilogy in 1955 and brought Indian cinema to audiences across the world. He wrote, directed and scored most of his nearly thirty films himself.

He received an honorary Academy Award in 1992, weeks before his death, and the Bharat Ratna the same year. His stories and illustrations remain in print for young readers.