👑Bharat Ratna Awards 2019👑

Bharat Ratna Award

• The Bharat Ratna Award is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India, the Bharat Ratna was instituted in 1954.
• This award was initially given to the achievements in the fields of art, literature, science and public services. Later, in December 2011, the government expanded the criteria to include "any field of human endeavor".
• A maximum of three nominees can be awarded each year and the Prime Minister of India makes the recommendations for the Bharat Ratna to the President of India.
• So far, 48 persons from various fields have been honored with respect to Bharat Ratna. In 1954, the first Bharat Ratna was honored by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Dr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman.

Bharat Ratna Award Specifications

• Obverse: An image of the Sun along with the words "Bharat Ratna", inscribed in Devanagari script, on a peepal leaf.
• Reverse: A platinum State Emblem of India placed in the centre with the national motto, "Satyameva Jayate" (Truth alone triumphs) in Devanagari script.

Bharat Ratna Awards 2019

• The 2019 Bharat Ratna award has been bestowed upon former President Pranab Mukherjee, Nanaji Deshmukh and singer Bhupen Hazarika. Nanaji Deshmukh singer Bhupen Hazarika were awarded Bharat Ratna posthumously.

Pranab Mukherjee

• Pranab Mukherjee served as the 13th President of India from 2012 until 2017. A veteran congressman, Pranab Mukherjee had held various key portfolios like Finance, Defence and External Affairs as Union Minister. He is the outstanding statesman of the present time.

Nanaji Deshmukh

• Nanaji Deshmukh laid great emphasis on education as a social worker. The first Saraswati Shishu Mandir was established by him at Gorakhpur in 1950. He was a member of RSS and also served as general secretary of Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

Bhupen Hazarika

• Bhupen Hazarika was a playback singer, lyricist, musician, singer, poet and film-maker from Assam, widely known as Sudhakantha. He mainly wrote and sang in the Assamese language. His works were marked by humanity and universal brotherhood and have been translated and sung in many languages. He also served as a channel to introduce the culture and folk music of Assam and Northeast India to Hindi cinema at the national level.

List of Bharat Ratna Award Recipients

Year	Name of the Recipient	About him/her
1954	Shri Chakravarti Rajagopalachari	Last Governor – General, Independence activist
1954	Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan	India’s 1st Vice President, Philosopher and India’s 2nd President
1954	Dr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman	Physicist
1955	Dr. Bhagwan Das	Author, Independence activist, Kashi Vidya Peeth Founder
1955	Dr. Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya	Diwan of Mysore, Civil engineer
1955	Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru	Author, Independence activist, 1st Prime Minister
1957	Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant	Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Independence activist, Home Minister
1958	Dr. Dhondo Keshave Karve	Educator, social reformer
1961	Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy	Chief Minister of West Bengal and a Physician
1961	Shri Purushottam Das Tandon	Educator, Independence activist
1962	Dr. Rajendra Prasad	Jurist, Independence activist, 1st President of India
1963	Dr. Zakir Hussain	Scholar, Independence activist, 3rd President of India
1963	Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kane	Sanskrit scholar and Indologist
1966	Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri (Posthumous)	2nd Prime Minister of India, Independence activist
1971	Smt. Indira Gandhi	Knowns as the Iron Lady of India, 3rd Prime Minister of India
1975	Shri Varahagiri Venkata Giri	4th President, Trade unionist
1976	Shri Kumaraswami Kamraj (Posthumous)	Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Independence activist
1980	Mother Teresa	Founder of Missionaries of Charity and a Catholic nun
1983	Shri Acharya Vinobha Bhave (Posthumous)	Independence activist and a Social reformer
1987	Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan	Independence activist, First non-citizen
1988	Shri Marudu Gopalan Ramachandran (Posthumous)	Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Film actor
1990	Dr. Bhim Rao Ramji Ambedkar (Posthumous)	Crusader against Untouchablity, Chief architect of Indian Constitution, Social Reformer, Dalit Icon, Historian, Economist, scholar, politician
1990	Dr. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela	2nd non – citizen and non – Indian recipient, Leader of Anti – Apartheid movement
1991	Shri Rajiv Gandhi (Posthumous)	6th Prime Minister of India
1991	Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (Posthumous)	Independence activist, 1st Home Minister
1991	Shri Morarji Ranchhodji Desai	4th Prime Minister and Independence activist
1992	Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (Posthumous)	1st Minister of Education and an Independence activist
1992	Shri Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata	Philanthropist and Industrialist
1992	Shri Satyajit Ray	Filmmaker
1997	Shri Gulzarilal Nanda	Interim Prime Minster, independence Activist
1997	Smt. Aruna Asaf Ali (Posthumous)	Independence activist
1997	Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam	Aeronautical Engineer and 11th President of India
1998	Smt. Maduari Sanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi	Carnatic Classical Singer
1998	Shri Chidambaram Subramniam	Minister of Agriculture and an Independence Activist
1999	Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan (Posthumous)	Politician, Independence Activist
1999	Professor Amartya Sen	Economist
1999	Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi (Posthumous)	Chief Minister of Assam, Independence activist
1999	Pandit Ravi Shankar	Sitar Player
2001	Sushri Lata Dinanath Mangeshkar	Playback Singer
2001	Ustad Bismillah Khan	Hindustani classical Shehnai player
2008	Pandit Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi	Hindustani classical Singer
2014	Sachin Tendulkar	Indian Cricketer, First Sportsman and Youngest Indian who got Bharat Ratna
2014	Prof. C.N.R Rao	Indian Scientist
2015	Atal Bihari Vajpayee	Atal Bihari Vajpayee is an Indian statesman who was the Eleventh Prime Minister of India from BJP
2015	Madan Mohan Malviya	The freedom icon and Educationist popularly known as ‘Mahamana”
2019	Pranab Mukherjee	13th President of India
2019	Nanaji Deshmukh (Posthumous)	Social Worker
2019	Bhupen Hazarika (Posthumous)	Assame Playback Singer

Some other Facts about Bharat Ratna Award

• The recommendations for the Bharat Ratna award are made by the prime Minister to the President.
• Maximum of three Bharat Ratna can be awarded in a year.
• Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, Sir C.V. Raman, and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari were the first recipients of Bharat Ratna award in 1954.
• In 1966, the first posthumousBharat Ratna was awarded to Lal Bahadur Shastri.
• Mother Teresa was the first naturalized Indian citizen of Bharat Ratna Award winner in 1980.
• Indira Gandhi was the first lady to be honored with Bharat Ratna award.
• The first Sportsmen and the youngest Bharat Ratna award winner is Sachin Tendulkar.
• M.S. Subhulakshmi the first musician to be felicitated with 'Bharat Ratna'.
• Since its inaugural in 1954 it has been awarded to 2 non-Indians (Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan of Pakistan and the former South African president Nelson Mandela).