Indian Awards, Honours and Sports

Bharat Ratna and National Civilian Honours

61 practice questions, each with the answer and an explanation.

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All 61 questions

  1. In which year were the Bharat Ratna and the Padma awards instituted?
  2. Who were the first Bharat Ratna recipients honoured in 1954?
  3. The Bharat Ratna medallion is shaped like which leaf?
  4. What do the Padma awards include in terms of cash allowances and travel concessions?
  5. Who was the first person to receive the Bharat Ratna posthumously, in 1966?
  6. Who became the first woman to receive the Bharat Ratna, in 1971?
  7. Which Pashtun leader of the Khudai Khidmatgar, known as the 'Frontier Gandhi', became in 1987 the first non-citizen of India to receive the Bharat Ratna?
  8. Which South African leader received the Bharat Ratna in 1990, after Abdul Ghaffar Khan in 1987 as a non-citizen recipient?
  9. Which cricketer became the youngest recipient of the Bharat Ratna, aged 40, in 2014?
  10. What did the Supreme Court hold in Balaji Raghavan v. Union of India about the Bharat Ratna and the Padma awards?
  11. On which occasion have the Padma awards been announced every year?
  12. Which legendary Carnatic classical vocalist became the first musician to be honored with the Bharat Ratna in 1998?
  13. Which Padma award is described as the second-highest civilian award in India?
  14. Which film director received the Bharat Ratna in 1992?
  15. Which Bharat Ratna recipient, an aerospace and defence scientist, served as the eleventh President of India from 2002 to 2007?
  16. What is the order of precedence of India's civilian honours, from highest to lowest?
  17. On what date was the Bharat Ratna instituted?
  18. Which shehnai maestro from Varanasi was conferred the Bharat Ratna in 2001 and was chosen to play at the Red Fort at the hour of India's independence on 15 August 1947?
  19. Which jurist and social reformer, who died in 1956, was posthumously conferred the Bharat Ratna in 1990?
  20. Who is the only industrialist to have received the Bharat Ratna, in 1992?
  21. During which periods were the Bharat Ratna and other personal civil honours suspended in India?
  22. Which civil engineer, whose birthday on 15 September is celebrated as Engineer's Day, received the Bharat Ratna in 1955?
  23. Which scholar of the five-volume History of Dharmasastra received the Bharat Ratna in 1963?
  24. Which educationist, a founding member of Jamia Millia Islamia and Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University from 1948, later President of India, received the Bharat Ratna in 1963?
  25. Which Indian economist received the Bharat Ratna in 1999, a year after the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences?
  26. Which former Prime Minister received the Bharat Ratna in 2015 along with Madan Mohan Malaviya?
  27. Which freedom fighter who died in 1946, a co-founder of Banaras Hindu University, was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2015?
  28. Which Assamese singer, lyricist and composer, known as the 'Bard of Brahmaputra', was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna?
  29. Which social activist, posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, founded the Deendayal Research Institute in 1969?
  30. Which agricultural geneticist, called the 'main architect of the green revolution in India', was posthumously conferred the Bharat Ratna in 2024?
  31. Which former Prime Minister of India, whose government under Finance Minister Manmohan Singh launched the free market reforms, was posthumously conferred the Bharat Ratna in 2024?
  32. Which politician, who served two terms as Chief Minister of Bihar, was a posthumous recipient of the Bharat Ratna in 2024?
  33. Which fifth Prime Minister of India, known as the 'Champion of India's peasants', was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2024?
  34. Which politician, India's 7th deputy prime minister (2002-2004), was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2024?
  35. How is the Bharat Ratna medal worn?
  36. Where in the Order of Precedence in India do living recipients of the Bharat Ratna rank?
  37. Which former President of India (2012-2017), who earlier served as Defence, External Affairs and Finance Minister, was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2019?
  38. Which woman received the Bharat Ratna in 1980 as the one naturalised citizen to receive the award?
  39. Which chemist specialising in solid state chemistry received the Bharat Ratna in 2014 together with Sachin Tendulkar?
  40. Which leader, called the 'Iron Man of India' for his role in bringing about 565 princely states into the Indian union, was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1991?
  41. Which Education Minister declined the Bharat Ratna while in office, arguing that members of the selection committee should not be recipients?
  42. What is the primary difference in the wording of the criteria for the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan?
  43. Which physician and Chief Minister of West Bengal, awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1961, is remembered on National Doctors' Day, celebrated on 1 July?
  44. Which singer received the Bharat Ratna in 2001?
  45. Which first and longest-serving Prime Minister of India (1947 to 1964) was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955?
  46. Which social reformer, best known for the Bhoodan land reform movement of 1951, was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1983?
  47. Which Tamil Nadu Chief Minister of 1954-63, known for the Kamaraj Plan and as a kingmaker, received the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1976?
  48. Which actor-politician, the AIADMK's first general secretary, was Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 1977 until his death in 1987 and was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in March 1988?
  49. Which Prime Minister of India (1977-1979) received Pakistan's highest civilian award, the Nishan-e-Pakistan, in 1990 and the Bharat Ratna in 1991?
  50. What is the central motif on the obverse of the Padma Vibhushan medal?
  51. Which Hindustani classical vocalist, a disciple of the Kirana gharana and widely known for the Khyal genre, was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2009?
  52. What happens to an awardee who misuses a Bharat Ratna or Padma award as a prefix or suffix to their name?
  53. Which sitar maestro received the Bharat Ratna in 1999 and won four Grammys?
  54. Which Indian leader, known as 'Lok Nayak' and associated with the call for 'Sampoorna Kranti' (total revolution) against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's government in the 1970s, was posthumously awarde…
  55. Which independence activist, the first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Union Home Minister from 1955 to 1961, received the Bharat Ratna in 1957?
  56. What text in Devanagari script is placed above the lotus on the Padma Vibhushan medal?
  57. Which independence activist, speaker of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from 1937 to 1950, campaigned for official language status for Hindi and received the Bharat Ratna in 1961?
  58. Who is eligible for the Padma awards?
  59. Who became the youngest Indian prime minister at the age of 40 and was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1991?
  60. Since 2015, who can recommend a person for the Padma awards online?
  61. Since 2015, who has been able to recommend a person for the Padma awards online?

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