Vidya Balan, Kamal Haasan and Paresh Rawal get Padma award

Vidya Balan

On Saturday the President of India conferred 127 Padma awards. Some of those who were chosen from the cinema industry include the following.

Actor Kamal Haasan has been conferred the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to Indian cinema. The actor had won the Padma Shri in 1990 has been in the film industry for over five decades and acted in nearly 200 films.

Vidya Balan who is considered to be one of the best actresses of Bollywood too has been honoured with a Padam Shri. Vidya started her career with Ekta Kapoor's television show ‘Hum Paanch'. She made her debut in Bollywood with ‘Parineeta' in 2005. She also has many other films to her credit like ‘The Dirty Picture', ‘No One Killed Jessica', ‘Kahaani', ‘Ishqiya' and ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai'. She won the national award for ‘The Dirty Picture'.

Actor Paresh Rawal too has been conferred with a Padma Shri for his contribution to Indian cinema. He has to his credit about 245 films which include ‘Golmaal', ‘OMG - Oh My God', ‘Maharathi' and ‘Sardar'.

Sooni Taraporevala who wrote the screenplay of Mira Nair's Oscar nominated ‘Salaam Bombay!' has been given a Padma Shri for script writing. Some of her other films are ‘The Namesake' and ‘Mississippi Masala'. She also directed a film in 2007 titled ‘Little Zizou'.