Bharat Ratna and Padma Awards: Rules and Firsts

The correct answer is C, 1954. Both honours were instituted on 2 January 1954 by President Dr. Rajendra Prasad, and the first Bharat Ratna was conferred in the same year on C. Rajagopalachari, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and C. V. Raman.

Option A, 1950, is the year the Constitution came into force, and candidates often attach every early institution to that date. Option B, 1952, is the year of the first general election, a landmark of a different kind. Option D, 1955, is a genuine trap rather than a random year: it is when the three Padma classes, first set up under a single name in 1954, were renamed Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. Keep the two years apart: instituted in 1954, renamed in 1955.

The correct answer is B, the Padma Vibhushan. The order of precedence of the civilian honours runs Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri, and the Padma Vibhushan is given for exceptional and distinguished service.

Option C, the Padma Bhushan, is one step lower and is awarded for distinguished service of a high order, and it is the commonest wrong answer because the two names sound alike. Option A, the Padma Shri, is the lowest of the three grades and is given for distinguished service in any field. Option D, the Ashoka Chakra, is not a civilian award at all but the highest peacetime gallantry award, ranking alongside the Param Vir Chakra in the gallantry list. Mixing the civilian and gallantry lists is exactly the error this option is designed to catch.

The correct answer is B, C. Rajagopalachari, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and C. V. Raman. All three were honoured in 1954, the first year of the award. Rajagopalachari was the last Governor-General of India, Radhakrishnan was a philosopher who later became President, and Raman was the physicist who discovered the effect that carries his name.

Option A groups three of the best known leaders of the period, which makes it attractive, but they were not the first set. Option C names people who were honoured in later years and is built to look plausible. Option D mixes Rajagopalachari, who was correct, with Shastri and Indira Gandhi, who belong to 1966 and 1971 respectively, the first posthumous award and the first woman recipient. A three-name question of this kind is safest answered by checking that all three names fit, not just the one you recognise.

The correct answer is B, Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was honoured in 1966, the year of his death at Tashkent, and who thus became the first person to receive the Bharat Ratna after his lifetime. Until then the honour had been given only to living persons.

Option A, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was also honoured posthumously, but much later, in 1991, so he is not the first. Option C, B. R. Ambedkar, received the award posthumously in 1990, again after Shastri. Option D, Subhas Chandra Bose, is associated with a conferment that was later withdrawn following objections about the manner of his death being treated as certain, so he is not counted in this list at all. When a question asks for the first of a category rather than merely an example, check the year attached to each name before answering.

The correct answer is C, Indira Gandhi, who received the Bharat Ratna in 1971 and was the first woman to be honoured with it. She was Prime Minister at the time, and the award followed the events of that year.

Option A, Mother Teresa, received the Bharat Ratna in 1980 and is therefore the second woman, not the first; she is also the standard trap in questions about the first non-Indian recipient, because she was born abroad but held Indian citizenship. Option B, Sarojini Naidu, called the Nightingale of India, died in 1949, before the award existed. Option D, M. S. Subbulakshmi, the Carnatic vocalist, was honoured in 1998 and was the first musician to receive it. Order the women recipients by year and this family of questions becomes straightforward.

The correct answer is B, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, honoured in 1987. Known as the Frontier Gandhi, he led the non-violent Khudai Khidmatgar movement in the North-West Frontier Province and remained a citizen of Pakistan after partition, which makes him the first recipient who was not an Indian national.

Option A, Nelson Mandela, received the award in 1990 and was the second foreign recipient, so the order of the two is the point being tested. Option C, Mother Teresa, is the usual trap: she was born in Europe but had taken Indian citizenship well before she was honoured in 1980, so she does not answer a question about nationality. Option D, the Dalai Lama, has received other honours but not this one. Read such a question carefully, because born abroad and not an Indian citizen are two different conditions.

The correct answer is C, Article 18, which abolishes titles and forbids the State from conferring any title except a military or academic distinction. Because of it, the Bharat Ratna and the Padma awards may not be used as a prefix or suffix to a recipient's name, and the awards were challenged on this ground before the Supreme Court upheld them in the Balaji Raghavan case.

Option A, Article 14, guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. Option B, Article 16, provides for equality of opportunity in matters of public employment. Option D, Article 21, protects life and personal liberty and is the most litigated Article of the Constitution. All three belong to the Fundamental Rights, as does Article 18, which is why they appear together, but only Article 18 deals with titles. Remember the pair: Article 18 and the rule that an award is not a title.

The correct answer is B, the Cabinet Secretary. The Padma Awards Committee is constituted afresh by the Prime Minister each year and is headed by the Cabinet Secretary, with the Home Secretary, the Secretary to the President and a number of eminent persons as members. Its recommendations go to the Prime Minister and then to the President.

Option A, the Home Minister, leads the ministry that administers the awards, which makes the option convincing, but the committee is not chaired at the political level. Option C, the Vice President, has no role in this process; the President confers the awards. Option D, the Chief Justice of India, is placed here because the awards were once challenged in court, but the judiciary does not select recipients. A related fact often asked alongside is that nominations may come from any citizen, including a self-nomination, since the process was opened to the public.

The correct answer is C, 120. The rules provide that not more than 120 Padma awards may be conferred in a year, and awards made posthumously and those given to foreigners and non-resident Indians are counted outside that ceiling. The limit applies to the three Padma grades taken together, not to each grade separately.

Options A, B and D are round numbers chosen to look reasonable, and 100 in particular tempts candidates who remember only that there is a ceiling. The figure to hold beside this one is the convention for the Bharat Ratna, where not more than three are conferred in a year, and the fact that the Bharat Ratna need not be conferred every year at all. Both figures are rules rather than counts of recipients, which is why they are safe to memorise: unlike the running total of awardees, they do not change from year to year.

The correct answer is B, the peepal leaf. The Bharat Ratna medallion is made in toned bronze in the shape of a peepal leaf, with a platinum sun and the words Bharat Ratna in Devanagari on the front, and the State Emblem of India with the motto Satyameva Jayate on the back.

Option A, the banyan leaf, is wrong although the banyan is the national tree of India, which is what makes the option tempting. Option C, the lotus leaf, is placed here because the lotus is the national flower and because the Padma awards take their name from the lotus; the Padma medallions carry a lotus pattern, not a leaf shape. Option D, the mango leaf, has ritual significance but no place in this design. One more detail is worth carrying: the original 1954 design was a circular gold medal, which was replaced within a year by the leaf now in use.

The correct answer is C, Sachin Tendulkar, honoured in 2014. He became eligible because the scope of the award had been widened in December 2011 from art, literature, science and public service to any field of human endeavour, and he is also the youngest person to receive the Bharat Ratna.

Option A, Dhyan Chand, the hockey player whose birth anniversary is observed as National Sports Day, has been the subject of long-standing demands for the honour but is not the answer to this question. Option B, Milkha Singh, the athlete called the Flying Sikh, received the Padma Shri and not the Bharat Ratna. Option D, Vishwanathan Anand, the chess grandmaster, was the first recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India's highest sporting award, which is a separate honour altogether. The point being tested is the link between the 2011 change in scope and the award of 2014.

The correct answer is D. A recipient of the Bharat Ratna is given a Sanad, which is a certificate signed by the President, together with the medallion, and the award is conferred at Rashtrapati Bhavan, usually a few weeks after the names are announced on the eve of Republic Day.

Option A is wrong because no cash amount accompanies the award, and the government has stated that no special allowance, concession or privilege follows from it either. Option B is wrong because Article 18 of the Constitution abolishes titles, and the award may not be written as a prefix or suffix to a name; a recipient may only state that the honour has been conferred on them. Option C is wrong on both counts: the award is conferred by the President, not the Prime Minister, and at Rashtrapati Bhavan, not Parliament House. The Prime Minister's role is to recommend the name to the President.