Bharat Ratna: Know All About India's Highest Civilian Award; Here's List of Award Winners From C Rajagopalachari to Pranab Mukherjee
Former President Pranab Mukherjee along with social activist late Nanaji Deshmukh and playback singer late Dr Bhupen Hazrika were conferred with India’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna by the Narendra Modi government.
Former President Pranab Mukherjee along with social activist late Nanaji Deshmukh and playback singer late Dr Bhupen Hazrika were conferred with India’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna by the Narendra Modi government. The announcement was made on the eve of the 70th Republic Day. Mukherjee is the only living legend from among the three great names who have been conferred with the country's highest civilian honour.
The Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India instituted in 1954. On 2 January 1954, the office of the secretary to the President issued a press release announcing the creation of two civilian awards—Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award, and the three-tier Padma Vibhushan classified into Class I, Class II, and Class III. On 15 January 1955, the Padma Vibhushan was reclassified into three different awards; the Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri.
The award is conferred in recognition of the exceptional performance of the highest order in various fields. The recommendations for the Bharat Ratna are made by the Prime Minister to the President, with a maximum of three nominees being awarded per year. The first recipients of the Bharat Ratna were politician C. Rajagopalachari, philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and scientist C. V. Raman. Since then, the award has been bestowed upon 48 individuals, including 14 who were awarded posthumously. In 2014, Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar, then aged 40, became the youngest recipient.
Here is the list of recipients of Bharat Ratna Awards since 1954:
C. Rajagopalachari
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
V. Raman
Bhagwan Das
Visvesvaraya
Jawaharlal Nehru
Govind Ballabh Pant
Dhondo Keshav Karve
Bidhan Chandra Roy
Purushottam Das Tandon
Rajendra Prasad
Zakir Husain
Pandurang Vaman Kane
Lal Bahadur Shastri
Indira Gandhi
V. V. Giri
K. Kamaraj
Mother Teresa
Vinoba Bhave
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
G. Ramachandran
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Nelson Mandela
Rajiv Gandhi
Vallabhbhai Patel
Morarji Desai
Abul Kalam Azad
J. R. D. Tata
Satyajit Ray
Gulzarilal Nanda
Aruna Asaf Ali
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
M. S. Subbulakshmi
Chidambaram Subramaniam
Jayaprakash Narayan
Amartya Sen
Gopinath Bordoloi
Ravi Shankar
Lata Mangeshkar
Bismillah Khan
Bhimsen Joshi
C. N. R. Rao
Madan Mohan Malaviya
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Pranab Mukherjee
Nanaji Deshmukh
Dr Bhupen Hazarika
The central government today announced names of the Padma awardees 2019 on the eve of the 70th Republic Day. President Ram Nath Kovind will confer Padma Shri to 94 people including veteran actor Kader Khan (posthumously), actor Manoj Bajpayee, footballer Sunil Chhetri, choreographer/director Prabhu Deva, former cricketer Gautam Gambhir, singer Shankar Mahadevan and freestyle wrestler Bajrang Punia.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 26, 2019 12:24 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).