Bharat Ratna Honor for three veterans of India on eve of 70th Republic Day in 2019

Honor for Former President Pranab Mukherjee, Bhupen Hazarika & Nanaji Dshmuk

• The Union government has released the country’s highest civilian honor Bharat Ratna for three veterans of India. The center has conferred the this honor for the 13th President of India Pranab Mukherjee, the RSS veteran Nanaji Dshmuk and Dadasaheb Phalke awardee Bhupen Hazarika.
• Pranab, who was the 13th President of India and served from 2012 until 2017, has been a veteran Congressman and has also served under Indira Gandhi. He was also finance minister under the prime ministership of Manmohan Singh.
• Mukherjee said he accepted the honor with “deep sense of humility and gratitude”. “ I have always said and I repeat, that I have got more from the people of our great country than I have given to them,” he said on Twitter.

Profiles of Bharat Ratna Awardees 2019

	Pranab Kumar Mukherjee (born 11 December 1935) is an Indian politician who served as the 13th President of India from 2012 until 2017. In a political career spanning five decades, Mukherjee has been a senior leader in the Indian National Congress and has occupied several ministerial portfolios in the Government of India. Prior to his election as President, Mukherjee was Union Finance Minister from 2009 to 2012.
	Chandikadas Amritrao Deshmukh also known as Nanaji Deshmukh (11 October 1916 – 27 February 2010) was a social activist from India. He worked in the fields of education, health, and rural self-reliance. He was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan in 1999 by the Government of India. He was a leader of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and also a member of the Rajya Sabha
	Bhupen Hazarika (8 September 1926 – 5 November 2011) was an Indian playback singer, lyricist, musician, singer, poet and film-maker from Assam, widely known as Sudhakantha. His songs, written and sung mainly in the Assamese language by himself, are marked by humanity and universal brotherhood and have been translated and sung in many languages, most notably in Bengali and Hindi. His songs, based on the themes of communal amity, universal justice and empathy, have become popular among the people of Assam, besides West Bengal and Bangladesh.

A Brief note on Bharat Ratna Award

• Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India. Instituted in 1954, the award is conferred “in recognition of exceptional service or performance of the highest order”, without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex.
• The award was originally limited to achievements in the arts, literature, science, and public services, but the government expanded the criteria to include “any field of human endeavor” in December 2011.
• The recommendations for the Bharat Ratna are made by the Prime Minister to the President, with a maximum of three nominees being awarded per year.
• Bharat Ratna recipients rank seventh in the Indian order of precedence.

Pic courtesy:Outlook India