The government may have rectified its goof-up in this year’s Padma awards by “upgrading” US-based veteran photographer Sunil Janah to a Padma Bhushan.

But it is clear that the whole process of nominating distinguished citizens and then handing out these “civilian honours” to the deserving must be thoroughly reviewed. Bureaucrats simply cannot be allowed to run riot each year while controversies pile up around the time of each Republic Day.

What the Janah case (he was awarded a Padma Shri in 1972 for photographs that graphically portrayed the Bengal famine and the freedom movement) portrays is the absence of a credible information storing (and sharing) system in our administrative setup.

More than the elimination of such risible errors, what is needed is a complete revamp of a process that has left so many people unhappy while so few are honoured. For a start, a 17-member search committee appears unwieldy.

Worse, some awards seem to be conferred as favours, with well-networked dubious achievers more likely to be picked than those with genuine accomplishments in their chosen profession or those who have served a higher social, scientific, scholarly or national cause.

Public clamour should not unduly influence the decision-making process, else we will always have someone like Sachin Tendulkar or Amitabh Bachchan preferred for a Bharat Ratna instead of a great war hero or someone with outstanding achievement in science or medicine who might not be a household name.

Let us only honour those Indians who are truly deserving of it.