Bharat Ratna
Bharat Ratna is India's highest civilian award. The Bharat Ratna is India's supreme decoration and honor, awarded for the highest degrees of national service. This service includes artistic, literary, and scientific achievements, as well as "recognition of public service of the highest order." Unlike knighthood, holders of the Bharat Ratna neither carry a special title nor assume a certain precedence or status.
The original statutes of January 1954 did not make allowance for posthumous awards (and this perhaps explains why the decoration was never awarded to Mahatma Gandhi), though this provision was added in the January 1955 statute (and there have, subsequently, been seven posthumous awards). While there was no formal provision that recipients of the Bharat Ratna should be Indian citizens, this seems to have been the general assumption. There has been one award to a naturalized Indian citizen (to Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known as "Mother Theresa," in 1980) and two to non-Indians (to Nelson Mandela in 1990 and to Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan in 1988).
The original specifications for the award called for a circular gold medal, 35 mm in diameter, with the sun and the Hindi legend "Bharat Ratna" above and a floral wreath below. The reverse was to carry the state emblem and motto. It was to be worn around the neck from a white ribbon. There is no indication that any specimens of this design were ever produced and one year later the design was altered.
Complete list of the Awardees
| Name | Awarded |
| Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975) | 1954 |
| Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878-1972) | 1954 |
| Dr Chandrasekhar Venkat Raman (1888-1970) | 1954 |
| Dr Bhagwan Das (1869-1958) | 1955 |
| Dr Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya (1861-1962) | 1955 |
| Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 -1964) | 1955 |
| Govind Ballabh Pant (1887-1961) | 1957 |
| Dr Dhondo Keshave Karve (1858-1962) | 1958 |
| Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882-1962) | 1961 |
| Purushottam Das Tandon (1882-1962) | 1961 |
| Dr Rajendra Prasad (1884-1963) | 1962 |
| Dr Zakir Hussain(1897-1969) | 1963 |
| Dr Pandurang Vaman Kane (1880-1972) | 1963 |
| Lal Bahadur Shastri (Posthumous) (1904-1966) | 1966 |
| Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) | 1971 |
| Varahagiri Venkatagiri (1894-1980) | 1975 |
| Kumaraswami Kamraj (Posthumous) (1903-1975) | 1976 |
| Mary Taresa Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa) (1910-1997) | 1980 |
| Acharya Vinoba Bhave (Posthumous) (1895-1982) | 1983 |
| Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) | 1987 |
| Marudu Gopalan Ramachandran (Posthumous) (1917-1987) | 1988 |
| Dr Bhim Rao Ramji Ambedkar (Posthumous) (1891-1956) | 1990 |
| Dr Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (b 1918) | 1990 |
| Rajiv Gandhi (Posthumous) (1944-1991) | 1991 |
| Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (Posthumous) (1875-1950) | 1991 |
| Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (1896-1995) | 1991 |
| Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) | 1992 |
| Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata (1904-1993) | 1992 |
| Satyajit Ray (1922-1992) | 1992 |
| A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (b 1931) | 1997 |
| Gulzarilal Nanda (1898-1998) | 1997 |
| Aruna Asaf Ali (Posthumous) (1906-1995) | 1997 |
| M.S. Subbulakshmi (b 1916) | 1998 |
| C Subramaniam (1910-2000) | 1998 |
| Jayaprakash Narayan (1902-1979) | 1998 |
| Ravi Shankar (b 1920) | 1999 |
| Amartya Sen (b 1933) | 1999 |
| Gopinath Bordoloi (b 1927) | 1999 |
| Lata Mangeshkar (b 1929) | 2001 |
| Bismillah Khan (b 1916) | 2001 |
See also
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Categories: India