List of Bharat Ratna Award Winners

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The Bharat Ratna Award are India’s highest civilian honour. This awards were instituted in 1954 to give recognition to exceptional service, or performance of the highest order in any field of human endeavour.

 The recommendations for awarding the Bharat Ratna are made by the Prime Minister to the President of India.  Any person is eligible for this award without any distinction of race, occupation, position or sex.  The number of Bharat Ratna awards is restricted to a maximum of 3, for a particular year.  It should be noted here that it’s not mandatory to award Bharat Ratna every year.  The Bharat Ratna Awardee, on conferment, receives a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President of India and a medallion. The medallion has its base shape of sacred petal leaf, it is rimmed in platinum  The Bharat Ratna award does not carries any monetary grant.  Rules & Regulations: This award cannot be used as a ‘prefix or suffix’ to the recipient’s name. However, a recipient of the award can state the following with his name: o ‘Awarded Bharat Ratna by the President’ or o ‘Recipient of Bharat Ratna Award’.  The first Indian to receive Bharat Ratna Award was the famous scientist, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman in 1954. He is also a Nobel prize winner  First three recipients of Bharat Ratna: In 1954, three remarkable Indians were awarded Bharat Ratna – C Rajgopalachari, S. Radhakrishnan and C.V.Raman.  First posthumous Bharat Ratna: Lal Bahadur Shastri was the first Bharat Ratna recipient to be honoured posthumously in 1966. www.Thennakam.com

 First Naturalised Citizen Bharat Ratna: Mother Teresa was the first naturalized Indian citizen to receive Bharat Ratna Award in 1980.  Non-Indian Bharat Ratna Awardees: Two non-Indians have been awarded India’s highest civilian honour. Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan was awarded in 1987 and Nelson Mandela in 1990.  In 2015, Educationist Madan Mohan Malaviya and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee are awarded the 44th and 45th Bharat Ratna Award respectively.

The List of Bharat Ratna Winners S.No. Name of Recipient Awarded in Field of Work Shri Independence activist. Last 1 1954 Chakravarti Rajagopalachari Governor – General of India. Philosopher, India’s 1st Vice 2 Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan 1954 President (1952 – 1962), and India’s 2nd President (1962 – 1967) Dr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Physicist, known for discovery of 3 1954 Raman the Raman Effect on light Kashi Vidyapith Founder, Author, 4 Dr. Bhagwan Das 1955 Independence activist. Dr. Mokshagundam 5 1955 Civil engineer, Diwan of Mysore. Visvesvaraya Independence activist, Author, 1st 6 Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru 1955 Prime Minister of India, (advised the president to award himself) Independence activist, Chief 7 Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant 1957 Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Home Minister 8 Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve 1958 social reformer, Educationist a Physician, Chief Minister of West 9 Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy 1961 Bengal 10 Shri Purushottam Das Tandon 1961 Independence activist, Educationist. Independence activist, Jurist, 1st 11 Dr. Rajendra Prasad 1962 President of India Independence activist, Scholar, 3rd 12 Dr. Zakir Hussain 1963 President of India 13 Dr.vPandurang Vaman Kane 1963 Indologist, Sanskrit scholar Independence activist, 2nd Prime Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri 14 1966 Minister of India, (First posthumous (Posthumous) award) 15 Smt. Indira Gandhi 1971 3rd Prime Minister of India 16 Shri Varahagiri Venkata Giri 1975 Trade unionist, 4th President Shri Kumarasami Kamaraj Independence activist, Chief 17 1976 (Posthumous) Minister of Tamil Nadu. www.Thennakam.com

Founder of Missionaries, Social 18 Mother Teresa 1980 activist (first naturalised citizen to be awarded) Shri Acharya Vinobha Bhave Independence activist and a Social 19 1983 (Posthumous) reformer Independence activist, (First non- 20 Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan 1987 citizen) Shri Marudu Gopalan Film actor, Chief Minister of Tamil 21 1988 Ramachandran (Posthumous) Nadu. Chief architect of Indian Constitution, Social Reformer, Dr. Bhim Rao Ramji Ambedkar 22 1990 Crusader against Untouchability, (Posthumous) Economist, Dalit Icon, Historian, scholar, and politician Leader of Anti – Apartheid 23 Dr. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela 1990 movement (2nd non – citizen and non – Indian recipient) 24 Shri Rajiv Gandhi (Posthumous) 1991 6th Prime Minister of India Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Independence activist, 1st Home 25 1991 (Posthumous) Minister Independence activist, 4th Prime 26 Shri Morarji Ranchhodji Desai 1991 Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Independence activist, 1st Minister 27 1992 (Posthumous) of Education Shri Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai 28 1992 Philanthropist and an Industrialist Tata 29 Shri Satyajit Ray 1992 Filmmaker Independence activist, Interim 30 Shri Gulzarilal Nanda 1997 Prime Minister Smt. Aruna Asaf Ali 31 1997 Independence activist (Posthumous) Aeronautical Engineer and 11th 32 Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam 1997 President of India www.Thennakam.com

Smt. Madurai Sanmukhavadivu 33 1998 Carnatic classical singer Subbulakshmi Independence activist, Minister of 34 Shri Chidambaram Subramniam 1998 Agriculture Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 35 1999 Independence activist, Politician (Posthumous) 36 Professor Amartya Sen 1999 Economist, Nobel Laureate Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi Independence activist, Chief 37 1999 (Posthumous) Minister of Assam 38 Pandit Ravi Shankar 1999 Sitar player Sushri Lata Dinanath 39 2001 Playback singer Mangeshkar 40 Ustad Bismillah Khan 2001 Hindustani classical Shehnai player 41 Pandit Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi 2009 Hindustani classical Singer Sports Person, Cricketer 42 Sachin Tendulkar 2014 (Youngest Bharat Ratna Awardee) Chintamani Nagesa Chemist, for his works in solid-state 43 2014 Ramachandra Rao and structural chemistry Educationist (founder of Banaras 44 Madan Mohan Malaviya 2015 Hindu University), Independence activist, known as “Mahamana” 45 Atal Bihari Vajpayee 2015 11th Prime Minister of India, www.Thennakam.com

Nobel Prize Winners 2014

The Nobel prize includes: Eight million kronor (£6,90,000/ $1.1 million), a diploma and a gold medal.

The six Nobel prizes are handed out on 10 of December every year, which is the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

One should remember that the awards in physiology/medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance to Nobel’s will. However, the economics prize was created later in year 1968.

Let us look into the Nobel prize winners 2014 and their contributions that won them the award.

I. Economics

Jean Tirole is a French economist, working in the Toulouse University. His work on analysis of market power and regulation especially with reference to taming powerful firms has been rewarded. His study sheds light on how governments should regulate powerful companies and firms that dominate markets.

If these firms are left unregulated these firms can lead to several undesirable results for the economy in for of unnecessary high prices or worse, unproductive industries that block entry of new firms. This work has useful insights for governments in dealing with mergers or cartels, also about how they should regulate monopolies.

II. Peace

An Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girl who is fighting Taliban, have found their names in the Nobel prize winners 2014 list. They have been www.Thennakam.com chosen for the Peace prize by the Prize committee for “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” Kailash Satyarthi, has showed “great personal courage” and “maintaining Gandhi’s tradition, has headed various forms of protests and demonstrations, all peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain” in recovering thousands of children from shackles of child labour across India.

Malala Yousafzai has been fighting for rights of girls to education despite her youth. She is seen as an example for children and young people who can contribute to improving their own situations like her. III. Literature

French author Patrick Modiano has been awarded the Nobel prize for Literature for his works that are focused on the Nazi occupation and its effect on his country France. The Nobel committee has awarded him “for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most unfathomable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation.”

His best known novel is “Missing Person” about a detective who loses his memory and struggles to find it. His other works revolve around the theme of memory, time and identity. He often describes in detail about the Nazi occupation during the World War, Jewishness, and loss of identity recurrently in his novels.

IV. Chemistry

Two Americans and a German have received the 2014 Nobel Chemistry Prize. They are- Stefan Hell of Germany, William Moerner, and Eric Betzig of United States. As the Award Committee puts it, they have been awarded for “the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy”. www.Thennakam.com

These scientists have developed the techniques which allow scientists to look inside nerve cells, to track proteins which cause disease and also to watch cells dividing in living embryos. This was made possible by these scientists who overcame a fundamental barrier which was preventing the improvement of the resolution of optical microscopes. Their work has showed that it is possible to observe features even at the scale of billionths of a metre.

This theoretically leaves no structure as too small to be studied. The groundbreaking work has now brought optical microscopy into the nano-dimension, thus opening new vistas.

V. Physics

Shuji Nakamura, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano of Japan, have been awarded the Nobel Physics Prize 2014. This award is being given for “the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources”. This invention of the blue LED has transformed lighting and led to development of the Blu-ray technology for storage of data.

Based on this bright blue LED, that has been discovered by these scientist, it becomes possible to make white LEDs which have widespread use all over the world for solid state lighting.

It is a very remarkable discovery considering that about a quarter of the world’s electricity is used solely for lighting. The development of white LEDs saves a lot of energy across the world.

The inefficiency of Conventional lightbulbs: The conventional bulbs are inefficient because they function by heating up a wire filament which produces light, this wastes substantial amounts of energy. Though Fluorescent lamps are better than the www.Thennakam.com conventional lightbulbs, but they are not as efficient as white LEDs.

Advantages of White LEDs: These are energy efficient is already established. They start emitting light instantly unlike other energy efficient devices which take a while. They have a lifespan of 11 years with continuous use. Considering that the average light-bulb is on for 4 hours in a day, a white LED light could then last for approximately 60 years with normal use.

Other uses of Blue light LED: Blue light has a shorter wavelength than other lights, hence it can store far more information. This increased storage capacity has led to the development of Blu-ray discs. this has transformed the storage sector.

VI. Physiology/medicine

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to British- US scientist John O’Keefe and a married couple May- Britt and Edvard Moser belonging to Norway. This award is being presented for discovering the brain’s “inner GPS” cells.

The discovery is about the neurons in the hippocampus area of Brain that possess “place fields”. These place fields fire when an animal is in a particular spot of its environment. This discovery has revolutionized the understanding of how the brain comes to know about our location and how it is able to navigate within our surroundings.