Jahnu Barua, 5 others from NE in Padma awards list

Six prominent personalities of the northeast, including National Award-winning Assamese filmmaker Jahnu Barua and 'Forest Man of India' Jadav Payeng, were today chosen for this year's Padma awards.
While Barua, a former Padma Shri, was named for the Padma Bhushan; Assam's tribal environmentalist Payeng, noted Assamese writer Lakshmi Nandan Bora, Manipur's medicine expert Sarungbam Bimola Kumari Devi, musician Neil Herbert Nonkynrih from Meghalaya, and social worker H Thegtse Rinpoche from Arunachal Pradesh will get Padma Shri.
Barua has won 10 National Film Awards and over 25 awards at international festivals. His "Halodhiya Choraye Baodhan Khai" (Catastrophe) won the President's Swarna Kamal for the best feature film in 1987, while "Hkhagoroloi Bohu Door" (It's a Long Way to the Sea) received the Swarna Kamal for best director in 1996.

His "Firingoti" (Spark) won the second best national film award and the best actress award for Moloya Goswami. In 2003, he was given the Padma Shri for his contribution to cinema.
"Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara", released in 2005, brought Barua critical acclaim.
Payeng, 56, single-handedly planted nearly 1,400 acres of forest on a Brahmaputra sandbar near Majuli known as Molai Kathonibari. He is a resident of Aruna Sapori at Kokilamukh in Jorhat district.

Nonkynrih is the founder of the famous Shillong Choir, which had performed for President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle during their first visit to India in 2010.

Bora, a former president of Axom Xahitya Xabha, is mainly a novelist and short-story writer and has about 60 books to his credit.
Devi, Chief Medical Officer of Imphal West, has been given the Padma Shri for her contribution to the society as a medical professional. Rinpoche is associated with the Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh.