India confers third highest civilian award to Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai

Microsoft Corporation Chairman & CEO Satya Nadella and Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai have been conferred with Padma Bhushan award for their contribution in field of “trade and industry” category. Their names were announced on the eve of Republic Day.  

Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in India after Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan and are given for exceptional and distinguished service in art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports and civil service among others.  

Hyderabad-born Nadella, 54, who became the CEO of Microsoft in February 2014, has been instrumental in transforming the company into a tech-age powerhouse. He has led major projects, which included the company’s move towards cloud computing and the development of one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world.

Likewise, Chennai-born Pichai joined Google in 2004 and was elevated as the CEO in August 2015 where he led the product management and innovation efforts for a suite of software products such as the company’s web browser Chrome, as well as its Android mobile operating system.   

Apart from Pichai and Nadella, this year’s Padma Bhushan award also went to Tata Sons chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran as well as to the heads of India’s leading coronavirus vaccine makers - Cyrus Poonawalla of Serum Institute of India (SII) and Krishna Ella and Suchitra Ella of Bharat Biotech.