Rajesh Khanna to be honoured by Padma Vibhushan Award

India’s first superstar Rajesh Khanna will be conferred the country's second highest civilian award Padma Vibhushan. This came to light when a high-level committee met yesterday to shortlist the names for Padma Awards. The committee, which includes Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Pulok Chatterjee, Union Home Secretary R K Singh, actor Ratna Pathak Shah, scientist Anil Kakodkar, shortlisted the names of next year's Padma awardees at the meeting. Apart from Khanna, who passed away on 18 July, renowned filmmaker Ramesh Sippy is likely to be honoured with the Padma Shri award on the eve of Republic Day next month, it is understood. The names of Khanna and Sippy were recommended by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. In spite of taking the country by storm with his super hits like Aradhana, Kati Patang, Aap Ki Kasam, Bawarchi among many others, Khanna was never given the Padma award in his lifetime, whereas most of his contemporaries, including Dharmendra, Dev Anand, Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Dilip Kumar, Hema Malini and Waheeda Rehman, did get the honour of being awarded one or the other category of Padma awards over the years. The names of awardees will be declared on 25 January after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approves of the same.