India Right To Information

The criteria for determining who gets the Padma awards have always remained veiled in secrecy, triggering suspicions, even conspiracy theories, and dimming the glow of the presitigious civilian honours. In what can fortify the apprehensions about the objectivity of the selection process, the Centre has admitted that for the year 2004, not only did the NDA government accept nominations well after the deadline but that the Awards committee members cleared some names on phone.In response to an RTI application, the ministry of home affairs -- the ministry tasked with awarding the decorations -- has also acknowledged that it did not know the field of eminence of the jury members, and that they, 16 in all, took just a few hours to sort 1,000 claims to select the 100 lucky recipients. In its reply to RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal, the MHA has defended its action in weeding out papers relating to the deliberations of the awards.

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