Bharat Ratna

Bharat Ratna is India's highest civilian award.

Related Topics:
India - Civilian award

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The Bharat Ratna is India's supreme decoration and honour, 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 knights, holders of the Bharat Ratna carry no special title nor any other honorifics, but they do have a place in the order of precedence. Bharat Ratna roughly translates as 'Gem of India'.

Related Topics:
Knights - Order of precedence

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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.

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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. Subsequently, there have been ten 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 — Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa (1980); and two to non-Indians — Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1987) and Nelson Mandela (1990). There has been one instance of the award being withdrawn when in 1992, the award was posthumously given to Subhash Chandra Bose but withdrawn later due to a legal technicality. The awarding of this honour though, has frequently been the subject of litigation questioning the constitutional basis of such state awards.

Related Topics:
1954 - Mahatma Gandhi - 1955 - Mother Teresa - Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan - Nelson Mandela - Subhash Chandra Bose

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