Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Award Winner List

Context

The Government of India will honour five distinguished persons with the Bharat Ratna Award for the year 2024.

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Bharat Ratna Awardee 2024

Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To Karpoori Thakur

Bharat Ratna Awards 2024

- Popularly known as ‘Jan Nayak’, Karpoori Thakur was an Indian politician who served as the 11th Chief Minister of Bihar twice, from 1970-71 and 1977-79.
- Hailing from Nai community, which is an Extremely Backward Class (EBC) among OBCs, Thakur initiated measured for upliftment of Backward Classes.
- He introduced a reservation model, which allocated 26% of reservations with specific quotas for OBCs, EBCs, women, and economically backward classes among upper castes.
Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To Lal Krishna Advani
- Lal Krishna Advani is an Indian politician, who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. He was one of the co-founders of Bharatiya Janata Party and served as the president of the party three times.
- Advani was the initiator of the Ram Rath Yatra from Somnath in Gujarat and concluding in Ayodhya, to advocate for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

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Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To PV Narasimha Rao

- PV Narasimha Rao was an Indian lawyer, politician and statesman who served as the 9th prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996.
- Rao was the first Prime Minister from the South of India and the second Prime Minister from a non-Hindi speaking region.
- He, along with the then Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, initiated economic reforms agenda primarily focused on ‘liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation‘, often referred to as LPG.
- This move is said to have pulled back the country from the economic brink it was facing at the height of a severe foreign exchange crisis.

Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To Chaudhary Charan Singh

- Chaudhary Charan Singh was a farmer leader and the 5th Prime Minister of India. He is hailed as the champion of Indian peasants.
- Charan Singh is credited for inventing and executing the well-known Zamindari Abolition Act.
- He also initiated the Land Holding Act 1960 which was aimed at lowering the ceiling on land holdings to make it uniform throughout the State.

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Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To MS Swaminathan

- MS Swaminathan was an agronomist, agricultural scientist, plant geneticist, administrator, and humanitarian, who is widely known as the ‘father of the Green Revolution’ in India.
- The Bharat Ratna is being awarded in recognition of his monumental contributions to India’s agriculture and farmers’ welfare.
- Dr Swaminathan is considered to have played a pivotal role in helping India achieve self-reliance in agriculture and also made outstanding efforts towards modernizing Indian agriculture.

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Bharat Ratna Award

About: Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award in India.
Origin: The award was constituted in 1954, to be conferred in recognition of exceptional service/performance of the highest order, without discrimination on the basis of race, occupation, position, or sex.
Eligibility: Initially, the award was restricted to achievements in the arts, literature, science, and public services.
- Since 2011, the awards criteria have been expanded to include any field of human endeavour.
- There is no written provision to award Bharat Ratna to only Indian citizens.
- Previously, the award was not conferred posthumously. This criterion was changed in 1966.
Cap on Recipients: The number of recipients of Bharat Ratna Awards is restricted to a maximum of three in a particular year.
- It is not mandatory to give Bharat Ratna every year.
Recommendation: Unlike Padma Awards where there is a committee to select recipients, the Bharat Ratna award is directly recommended by the Prime Minister of India to the President.
Award Constituents: The award includes a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a medallion. There is no monetary grant.
The Medallion: The medallion is in the shape of a peepal leaf with ‘Bharat Ratna’ inscribed in Devanagri script under a sunburst figure.
- The reverse side of the medallion features the phrase ‘Satyameva Jayate’ written in Hindi under an inscription of the state emblem.
- The emblem, the sun and the rim of the Bharat Ratna award are made using platinum metal while the inscriptions are in burnished bronze.

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Bharat Ratna Award Winners List From 1954 to 2024

Year of Award	Recipient’s Name	Contributing Field
1954	Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan	Literature
	Sir C V Raman	Science
	C Rajagopalachari	Public Service
1955	Sir M Vivesvaraya	Science
	Dr Bhagwan Das	Education
	Jawaharlal Nehru	Public Service
1957	Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant	Public Service
1958	Dr Dhonde Keshav Karve	Education
1961	Purushottam Das Tandon	Public Service
1961	Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy	Education/ Public Service
1962	Dr Rajendra Prasad	Public Service
1963	Dr Panduran Vaman Kane	Literature
1963	Dr Zakir Hussain	Public Service
1966	Lal Bahadur Shastri	Public Service
1971	Indira Gandhi	Public Service
1975	V V Giri	Public Service
1976	K Kamaraj	Public Service
1980	Mother Teresa	Public Service
1983	Acharya Vinoba Bhave	Public Service
1987	Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan	Public Service
1988	M G Ramachandran	Arts/ Public Service
1990	Nelson Mandela	Public Service
1990	Dr B R Ambedkar	Public Service
1991	Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel	Public Service
	Morarji Desai	Public Service
	Rajiv Gandhi	Public Service
1992	Satyajit Ray	Arts
	Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata	Education/Business
	Maulana Abul Kalam Azad	Public Service/Education
1997	Dr APJ Abdul Kalam	Science
	Gulzari Lal Nanda	Public Service
	Aruna Asaf Ali	Public Service
1998	M S Subbulakshmi	Arts
1998	Chidambaram Subramaniam	Public Service
1999	Pandit Ravi Shankar	Arts
	Jayprakash Narayan	Public Service
	Gopinath Bordoloi	Public Service
	Prof Amartya Sen	Science
2001	Ustad Bismillah Khan	Arts
2001	Lata Mangeshkar	Arts
2008	Pandit Bhimsen Joshi	Arts
2014	Prof CNR Rao	Science
2014	Sachin Tendulkar	Sports
2015	Atal Bihari Vajpayee	Public Service
2015	Madan Mohan Malviya	Education
2019	Pranab Mukherjee	Public Service
	Nanaji Deshmukh	Education
	Bhupen Hazarika	Arts
2024	Karpoori Thakur	Public Service
	Lal Krishna Advani	Public Service
	P V Narasimha Rao	Public Service
	Chaudhary Charan Singh	Public Service
	Dr M S Swaminathan	Agriculture Science

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Miscellaneous Facts About Bharat Ratna

1st Recipients: C. Rajagopalachari, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Sir C. V. Raman, were the first recipients of the Bharat Ratna in 1954.
Foreign Recipients: Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Nelson Mandela are the foreigners awarded with the Bharat Ratna. A naturalised Indian citizen, Mother Teresa was conferred with the award in 1980.
Woman Recipient: Indira Gandhi was the first woman Bharat Ratna recipient.
Youngest Recipient: Sachin Tendulkar is the youngest Bharat Ratna recipient.
Highest Recipients in a Year: The five Bharat Ratna awards given in 2024 marks the highest number of Bharat Ratna awarded in a single year, surpassing the four awarded in 1999.
Use as a Prefix: Under Article 18 (1) of the Indian Constitution, the award cannot be used as a prefix or suffix to the recipient’s name.
- However, they are eligible to add ‘Awarded Bharat Ratna by the President’ or ‘Recipient of Bharat Ratna Award’ in their biodata, visiting card, letter head, etc.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Karpoori Thakur, Lal Krishna Advani, P V Narasimha Rao, Chaudhary Charan Singh and Dr M S Swaminathan have been awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2024.

Initially, the award was restricted to achievements in the arts, literature, science, and public services. Since 2011, the awards criteria have been expanded to include any field of human endeavour. There is no written provision to award Bharat Ratna to only Indian citizens. Previously, the award was not conferred posthumously. This criterion was changed in 1966.

Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar is the youngest recipient of the Bharat Ratna Award.

Yes. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Nelson Mandela are the foreigners awarded with the Bharat Ratna. A naturalised Indian citizen, Mother Teresa was conferred with the award in 1980.

The five Bharat Ratna awards given in 2024 marks the highest number of Bharat Ratna awarded in a single year, surpassing the four awarded in 1999.

Under Article 18 (1) of the Indian Constitution, the award cannot be used as a prefix or suffix to the recipient's name.

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Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Award Winner List

Context

Bharat Ratna Awardee 2024

Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To Karpoori Thakur

Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To Lal Krishna Advani

Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To PV Narasimha Rao

Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To Chaudhary Charan Singh

Bharat Ratna Awards 2024: Bharat Ratna To MS Swaminathan

Bharat Ratna Award

Bharat Ratna Award Winners List From 1954 to 2024

Miscellaneous Facts About Bharat Ratna

Frequently Asked Questions

Who have been Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2024?

What is the Eligibility Criteria for the Bharat Ratna Award?

Who is the youngest Bharat Ratna Recipient?

Can Foreigners be Awarded the Bharat Ratna?

In which year was the highest number of Bharat Ratna awards given?

Can the Bharat Ratna be used as a Prefix?

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