Padma Bhushan Award 2012

Twenty-eight people received the Padma Bhushan in 2012. Bollywood veterans Shabana Azmi and Dharmendra were honored for cinema, alongside filmmaker Mira Nair. Cardiac surgeon Devi Shetty represented medicine. The list included an unusually high number of foreign-born or overseas honorees, including British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor, Singapore's foreign minister George Yeo, Harvard literary theorist Homi K. Bhabha, and US-based academics Vidya Dehejia and Arvind Panagariya, reflecting a deliberate outreach to the global Indian diaspora that year.

The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service of a high order, without distinction of race, occupation, position or sex".