How to Prepare for General Awareness – Awards, Medals, Prizes – Part II

In my previous post, we talked about the Nobel Prize, the Booker Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. In this post, I would like to cover other important awards like Bharat Ratna, Padma Awards and Ramon Magsaysay Awards. Although there as hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have won these awards – it is not possible to remember all their names. I have filtered out a few for you. These have a higher probability of being asked.

Ramon Magsaysay Award

The Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is often considered Asia's Nobel Prize.

There have been ~50 Indians who have been awarded the Prize. The prominent / recent ones are:

Bharat Ratna

Bharat Ratna is the Republic of India's highest civilian award, for performance of highest order in any field of human endeavor.

It was first awarded in 1954 to C. Rajgopalachari, C V Raman & S Radhakrishnan. It was last awarded in 2008 to Bhimsen Joshi.

Of the 41 awards so far, there has been one award to a naturalized Indian citizen, Mother Teresa (1980), and to two non-Indians, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1987) and Nelson Mandela (1990).

In 2011, the Government of India modified the eligibility criteria to allow sportspersons to receive the award.

Living recipients:

• Nelson Mandela (1990)
• A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1997)
• Ravi Shankar (1999)
• Amartya Sen (1999)
• Lata Mangeshkar (2001)

Other Awards

Padma Vibhushan is the highest civilian honor after Bharat Ratna

Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna is the highest sporting honor

Dhyan Chand Award is highest award for lifetime achievement in sports and games.

Dadasaheb Phalke Award is the highest award for lifetime achievement in cinema.

Bhartiya Gnanpith Award is a literary award.

Shahitya Academy Fellowship is the highest literary honour conferred by the Government of India. In 2010, 5 people were honored with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowships. – Dr. Bholabhai Patel, Sri Kunwar Narain, Sri Khushwant Singh, Prof. Kedar Nath Singh & Chandranath Mishra 'Amar'.

- Ravi Handa

(Ravi Handa, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, has been working in the CAT Prep sector for the past 7 years. He currently offers online coaching for CAT 2013 You can use the coupon code INSIDEIIM to get a 20% discount on the course. He can be contacted on Facebook or Google Plus)

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