Bharat Ratna to 5 people in 2024

Bharat Ratna to 5 people in 2024

Narasimha Rao, Chaudhary Charan Singh, MS Swaminathan to receive India’s highest civilian award

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently announced the latest recipients of India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna.

This year, the prestigious award is being conferred upon five distinguished individuals.

The decision to confer the Bharat Ratna upon former prime ministers P V Narasimha Rao and Charan Singh, as well as green revolution pioneer M S Swaminathan, has brought the total number of recipients of the country's highest civilian award to 53. This includes five individuals who have been honored in 2024, marking the highest number awarded in a single year thus far.

Established in 1954, the Bharat Ratna is bestowed upon individuals in acknowledgment of their extraordinary service or remarkable achievements across various fields.

• LK Advani: A key figure in the Ram Mandir Movement was BJP stalwart .
• Karpoori Thakur: Bihar's Ex Chief Minister and Progressive Leader 
• PV Narasimha Rao: Ex Prime Minister and the architect of economic reforms. 
• Chaudhary Charan Singh: Ex Prime Minister and Advocate of Agrarian Policies.
• MS Swaminathan: Father of  Green Revolution.

Former Prime Ministers PV Narasimha Rao, known for his transformative liberalization policies, and Chaudhary Charan Singh, a staunch advocate for farmers' rights, along with eminent agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan, revered for his pivotal role in the Green Revolution, are set to receive the prestigious Bharat Ratna award, as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.

Charan Singh, hailing from western Uttar Pradesh and belonging to the Jat community, emerged as a key figure in anti-Congress politics during a time when the Congress party held significant dominance in the political landscape.

Rao, a prominent figure from Telangana, is widely acclaimed for spearheading economic reforms that reshaped India's economic trajectory.

Meanwhile, MS Swaminathan's groundbreaking contributions in developing high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice significantly bolstered food grain production during critical periods in the 1960s and 1970s. He played a pivotal role in steering India towards self-sufficiency in agriculture and modernizing the agricultural landscape of the country.

The last Bharat Ratna was conferred upon Pranab Mukherjee in 2019, with posthumous awards granted to Bhupendra Kumar Hazarika and Nanaji Deshmukh. Notably, the award was not presented between 2020 and 2023.

Instituted in 1954 by the Government of India, the Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian honor, recognizing exceptional service or outstanding achievements across various fields. It holds a distinct status from the Padma awards.

Recommendations for the Bharat Ratna are made by the Prime Minister to the President, with no formal recommendations required. There have been instances where the award was conferred upon multiple recipients in a single year, and there have also been years when it was not awarded to anyone.

In the first year, the coveted award was conferred upon C Rajagopalachari, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman.

Those conferred with this award in the past include Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Zakir Hussain, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Abul Kalam Azad, Indira Gandhi, K Kamraj, Mother Teresa, Vinoba Bhave, MG Ramachandran, BR Ambedkar, Nelson Mandela, Rajiv Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel, Morarji Desai, Satyajit Ray, APJ Abdul Kalam, Jayaprakash Narayan, Amartya Sen, Sachin Tendulkar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Madan Mohan Malaviya.

The other recipients are Bhagwan Das, M Visvesvaraya, Govind Ballabh Pant, Dhondo Keshav Karve, Bidhan Chandra Roy, Purshottam Das Tandon, Pandurang Vaman Kane, Varahgiri Venkata Giri, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, Jahangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata, Gulzarilal Nanda, Bismillah Khan, M Subbulakshmi, Gopinath Bordoloi, Pandit Ravi Shankar, CN R Rao, Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi, Lata Mangeshkar, Chidambaram Subramaniam and Aruna Asaf Ali.

Upon being conferred with the Bharat Ratna, the recipient is honored with a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President of India, along with a distinctive medallion.

It's important to note that while this prestigious accolade symbolizes the highest civilian honor in India, it does not entail any monetary grant.

(image credit: https://www.andhrajyothy.com)