"India has wonderful talented people and they deserve to be recognised," Lord Professor Bhiku Parikh, a Padma Bhushan awardee said at a function organised at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, UK, to felicitate Padma Bhushan and Padma Shree recipients Lord Khalid Hameed and John Marr respectively.

Parikh said India, with a population of over 1.1 billion people gives only 122 awards every year while Britain, with just over 60 million population gives away 18,000 awards.

The event was held as part of Republic Day celebrations and was attended by High Commissioner of India to the UK Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, who described Lord Hameed and Marr as "luminaries of Bhavan".

Referring to the progress India has made during the last 60 years since it became a Republic, Mukherjee said, "We will not barter away our liberty for any temporary quick fix or safety and we are proud of being an open society."

The High Commissioner condemned the terror attacks in Mumbai on November 26 2008 and said "certain bigoted men, who cannot tolerate the fact that the nation is wedded to secularism, pluralism and democracy had launched the attack and regardless of the slaughter of innocent, they will fail."

Speaking on the occasion, Lord Hameed, former Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Cromwell Hospital in London, said the recognition he received from the motherland was "special" for him.

Lord Hameed, who had received Padma Shree in 1992, said "I am looking forward to receiving the Padma Bhushan from the President of India."

82-year-old Marr, UK's most eminent carnatic music theorist and specialist in Tamil Literature, said "I deeply appreciate the honour done to me by the President and people of India through this signal honour."