President Draupadi Murmu today honored five personalities selected by the Government of India with Bharat Ratna at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP National President JP Nadda, Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and other leaders also participated in this program. President Murmu has honored freedom fighter and former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, former PM Narasimha Rao, former Bihar CM Karpuri Thakur and agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan with the country’s highest honor Bharat Ratna.
It is reported that former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani could not reach Bharat Ratna due to ill health. In such a situation, the President honored the remaining four personalities with Bharat Ratna (posthumously) in the program. While Chaudhary Charan Singh’s grandson Jayant Singh arrived to receive the Bharat Ratna, PV Prabhakar Rao arrived to receive Narasimha Rao’s Bharat Ratna.
No one was given Bharat Ratna from 2020 to 2023, but for 2024, the central government chose these five personalities. In this ceremony organized at Rashtrapati Bhavan, except Vice President Lal Krishna Advani, other four personalities were given Bharat Ratna award posthumously.
Narasimha Rao
Narasimha Rao won the elections eight times. He was called Chanakya of politics. After spending 50 years in the Congress Party, he became the Prime Minister of the country. Rao could speak in about 10 different languages. He was also considered a master in translation. In this ceremony organized at Rashtrapati Bhavan, PV Prabhakar Rao, son of former PM Narasimha Rao, arrived to receive the Bharat Ratna.
Chaudhary Charan Singh
Chaudhary Charan Singh, born in a middle-class farmer family in Noorpur in Meerut district, was the fifth Prime Minister of India. He graduated in science in 1923 and obtained a master’s degree from Agra University in 1925. After returning to Meerut in 1929, he joined Congress. Let us tell you that on behalf of Chaudhary Charan Singh, his grandson Jayant Singh reached Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive the Bharat Ratna.
Lal Krishna Advani also gets Bharat Ratna
Lal Krishna Advani has been a senior BJP leader and the seventh Deputy Prime Minister of the country. He was born in 1927 in a Hindu Sindhi family in Karachi, Pakistan. Advani has held the post of Deputy Prime Minister of India in the government of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Lal Krishna Advani is among those who laid the foundation of the Bharatiya Janata Party. During the 10th and 14th Lok Sabha, he has played the role of Leader of the Opposition very well. In 2015, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honour.
Karpuri Thakur
Karpuri Thakur is considered to be the leader who ignited the flame of social justice in the politics of Bihar. Karpoori Thakur was born in an ordinary barber family. It is said that he pursued anti-Congress politics throughout his life and achieved his political position. Even during the Emergency, despite all efforts, Indira Gandhi could not get him arrested. Let us tell you that in this ceremony organized at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Karpuri Thakur’s son Ramnath Thakur arrived to receive the Bharat Ratna.
Noted agricultural scientist MS Swaminath also gets Bharat Ratna
Renowned agricultural scientist MS Swaminath was born in Madras Presidency in the year 1925. Swaminathan was only 11 years old when his father died. His elder brother educated him and brought him up. During the Second World War, there was a severe famine in Bengal in 1943, which shook him. In view of this, he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Science from Madras Agricultural College in 1944. Received a master’s degree in cytogenetics in 1949. He did his research on potatoes. Let us tell you that on September 28 last year, MS Swaminathan died in Chennai. For this reason his daughter Nitya Rao reached Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive the Bharat Ratna.
Bharat Ratna Award List
| Year | Recipients | About |
| Bharat Ratna 1954 | C. Rajagopalachari | Activist, statesman, and lawyer |
| Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan | India’s first Vice-President and second President | |
| C. V. Raman | Physicists, mathematicians, and scientists | |
| Bharat Ratna 1955 | Bhagwan Das | Activist, philosopher, and educationist |
| M. Visvesvaraya | Civil engineer, statesman, and Diwan of Mysore | |
| Jawaharlal Nehru | Activist and author served as the Prime Minister of India | |
| Bharat Ratna 1957 | Govind Ballabh Pant | Activist and first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh |
| Bharat Ratna 1958 | Dhondo Keshav Karve | Social reformer and educator |
| Bharat Ratna 1961 | Bidhan Chandra Roy | Physician, political leader, philanthropist, educationist, and social worker |
| Purushottam Das Tandon | Activist and speaker of the United Provinces Legislative Assembly | |
| Bharat Ratna 1962 | Rajendra Prasad | Activist, lawyer, statesman, and scholar |
| Bharat Ratna 1963 | Zakir Husain | Activist, economist, and education philosopher served as a Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University and the Governor of Bihar |
| Pandurang Vaman Kane | Indologist and Sanskrit scholar, known for his five-volume literary work | |
| Bharat Ratna 1966 | Lal Bahadur Shastri | Activist and served as the second Prime Minister of India |
| Bharat Ratna 1971 | Indira Gandhi | First women Prime Minister of India |
| Bharat Ratna 1975 | V. V. Giri | Trade Unionist |
| Bharat Ratna 1976 | K. Kamaraj | Independence activist and statesman, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu |
| Bharat Ratna 1980 | Mother Teresa | Catholic nun and the founder of the Missionaries of Charity. |
| 1983 | Vinoba Bhave | Activist, social reformer, and a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi |
| Bharat Ratna 1987 | Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan | First noncitizen, independence activist |
| Bharat Ratna 1988 | M. G. Ramachandran | Actor turned politician, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu |
| Bharat Ratna 1990 | B.R. Ambedkar | Social reformer and leader of the Dalits |
| Nelson Mandela | Leader of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa, President of South Africa | |
| Bharat Ratna 1991 | Rajiv Gandhi | Gandhi was the ninth Prime Minister of India serving from 1984 to 1989. |
| Vallabhbhai Patel | Activist and first Deputy Prime Minister of India | |
| Morarji Desai | Activist, and Prime Minister of India | |
| Bharat Ratna 1992 | Abul Kalam Azad | Activist and first Minister of education |
| J. R. D. Tata | Industrialist, philanthropist, and aviation pioneer | |
| Satyajit Ray | Director, filmmaker, writer, novelist | |
| Bharat Ratna 1997 | Gulzarilal Nanda | Activist, and interim Prime Minister of India. |
| Aruna Asaf Ali | Activist | |
| A.P.J Abdul Kalam | Aerospace and defense scientist | |
| Bharat Ratna 1998 | M. S. Subbulakshmi | Carnatic classical vocalist |
| Chidambaram Subramaniam | Activist and former Minister of Agriculture of India | |
| Bharat Ratna 1999 | Jayaprakash Narayan | Activist, and social reformer |
| Amartya Sen | Economist | |
| Gopinath Bordoloi | Activist | |
| Ravi Shankar | Musician, sitar player | |
| Bharat Ratna 2001 | Lata Mangeshkar | Singer |
| Bismillah Khan | Hindustani classical shehnai player | |
| Bharat Ratna 2009 | Bhimsen Joshi | Hindustani classical vocalist |
| Bharat Ratna 2014 | C. N. R. Rao | Chemist and professor, author |
| Sachin Tendulkar | Cricketer | |
| Bharat Ratna 2015 | Madan Mohan Malaviya | Scholar and educational reformer. |
| Atal Bihari Bajpayee | Elected nine times to the Lok Sabha, twice to the Rajya Sabha, and served as the Prime Minister of India for three terms. | |
| Bharat Ratna 2019 | Pranab Mukherjee | Indian politician, and senior leader in the Indian National Congress. |
| Nanaji Deshmukh | A social activist from India, education, health, and rural self-reliance. | |
| Bhupen Hazarika | Indian playback singer, lyricist, musician, singer, poet, and filmmaker from Assam. |
