Uday Kotak, Ashok Khade, Satyanarayan Nuwal, TT Jagannathan: Industrialists honoured with the Padma awards

Four industrialists were among the list of Padma awardees who were conferred the honour by President Droupadi Murmu on May 25. This year, the President honoured 131 awardees -- five Padma Vibhushan, 13 Padma Bhushan and 113 Padma Shri. 

Uday Kotak, Ashok Khade, Satyanarayan Nuwal, and TT Jagannathan were honoured with the Padma awards. Uday Kotak was conferred the Padma Bhushan, while Ashok Khade, Satyanarayan Nuwal, and T T Jagannathan were conferred the Padma Shri. 

MUST READ | Full list of Padma awardees out! Dharmendra, Satish Shah, Piyush Pandey to be awarded posthumously

All you need to know about this year’s industrialists who won the Padma awards: 

Uday Kotak

Uday Kotak is the founder of Kotak Mahindra Bank and has been central to the growth of the Kotak Mahindra group over the past 38 years. He served as the bank's Managing Director and CEO till September 1, 2023, and became a Non-Executive Non-Independent Director with effect from September 2, 2023. Under his leadership, the Kotak Mahindra group emerged as one of India's leading diversified and integrated financial services conglomerates, offering solutions across banking, asset management, alternate asset management, life and general insurance, stock broking, investment banking, private banking, microfinance and asset reconstruction.

Kotak has also played a key role in shaping India's banking and financial sector over more than three decades. He was a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore until December 2023 and served as President of the Confederation of Indian Industry from June 2020 to May 2021. He was also on the International Advisory Board of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation.

DON'T MISS | Padma Awards 2026: Meet 75-yr old Anke Gowda, a bus conductor who built a library of 2 million books

Kotak holds a Bachelor's degree in Commerce from Mumbai University and a Master's degree in Management Studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

Ashok Khade

Ashok Khade, who won the Padma Shri, was honoured for a journey from acute poverty to building a globally competitive industrial enterprise. Khade, who heads the diversified industrial group, DAS Offshore, employing around 4,000 workers, dedicated the award to his mother and family.

Khade’s rise from Ped village in Tasgaon tehsil of Sangli district to leading a company in the offshore oil and gas sector and shipbuilding tells a story shaped by perseverance, innovation and social impact. Born into a Dalit family, he grew up in severe poverty, with his mother working as a daily wage labourer.

MUST READ | Padma Awards 2026: Who is 87-yr old Inderjit Singh Sidhu, a retired DIG who cleans Chandigarh streets every morning?

His entrepreneurial journey began in earnest in 1993, when he co-founded DAS Offshore Engineering Private Limited with his brothers. As Managing Director, he led the company in fabrication and engineering services for the offshore oil and gas sector, a field that demands precision, technical excellence and high operational capacity.

Satyanarayan Nuwal

Satyanarayan Nuwal is the founder of Solar Industries India Ltd, the largest producer of industrial explosives and explosive initiating systems in India. Not only an industrialist, Nuwal is also known for his philanthropic endeavours. 

Nuwal’s meteoric rise in a life fraught with challenges is not only inspiring but also exemplary.  

Born in Bhilwara, Rajasthan, to a Patwari father, Nuwal faced financial hardships after his father’s retirement, which forced him to drop out of school after Class 10. Nuwal, who had relocated to Maharashtra in search of livelihood is known to have slept at railway stations. 

Satyanarayan Nuwal now has a net worth of nearly Rs 70,000 crore. 

DON'T MISS | Padma Awards 2026: About Raghuveer Khedkar, the tamasha artist who has performed over 12,000 shows

TT Jagannathan (posthumous)

TT Jagannathan played a pivotal role in bringing simple and useful technologies within the reach of Indian families and in reshaping the TTK group.

His approach to innovation began in the kitchen, thanks to his long association with the cooking business. After his academic work abroad, he returned to India in 1973 and joined Tamil Nadu Printers & Traders Pvt Ltd. as general manager. In less than a year, he turned the company into a profitable venture. It is now one of the leading producers of maps and travel guides. At the age of 26, he was appointed Managing Director of the TTK group of companies in 1974.

Under his leadership, the TTK group became one of the leading manufacturers of pressure cookers and contraceptives. He is the author of ‘Disrupt and Conquer-How TTK Prestige became a Billion Dollar Company’, a book on the company’s milestones and its journey from bankruptcy to becoming a successful company. Jagannathan said he achieved the turnaround with ‘a huge dose of common sense’.

He had a PhD in operations research from Cornell University, US.

MUST READ | Padma Awards 2026: Meet Dr Armida Fernandez, the pioneer of India’s first human milk bank