President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday conferred the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honour, upon former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan. In 1994, Narayanan was arrested by Kerala police over espionage charges, which were dismissed by CBI in 1996. The Supreme Court declared him not guilty in 1998 and ordered Kerala to pay ₹50-lakh compensation over "mental torture" in 2018.