Who among the following Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dancers has been conferred…

The Padma Awards are India's civilian honours, conferred by the Government of India in three ascending tiers for distinguished service in a field such as the arts: the Padma Shri, then the Padma Bhushan, and finally the Padma Vibhushan. Because each tier requires progressively higher standing recognised at the national level, very few honorees in any one field are conferred all three across a career.

Among Bharatanatyam-and-Kuchipudi dancers, Yamini Krishnamurthy received all three: the Padma Shri in 1968, the Padma Bhushan in 2001, and the Padma Vibhushan in 2016, as recorded in the Government of India's official Padma Awards directory.

Checking the other dancers against the same two conditions, a Bharatanatyam-and-Kuchipudi background and all three Padma tiers, rules them out:

• Mrinalini Sarabhai, known for Bharatanatyam and Kathakali, holds the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan but not the Padma Vibhushan.

• Kalamandalam Kalyanikutty Amma is identified with Mohiniyattam rather than Bharatanatyam or Kuchipudi, and does not appear in the official Padma Awards directory.

• Shovana Narayan, a Kathak exponent, has received only the Padma Shri.

Yamini Krishnamurthy is therefore the dancer who matches both the dance-form and all-three-awards conditions in the question.