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Awards and Honours

About 7 min · General Knowledge and General Awareness · English

Time worked out from the lesson's 583 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.

Questions test your ability to match award names with recipients, recall the year or field of honour, and identify the hierarchy or purpose of civilian and military awards. This topic is purely memory-based — you must know who received which award, when, and why. Success depends on systematic memorisation of India's top civilian honours (Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri), gallantry awards (Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra, Vir Chakra, Ashok Chakra, etc.), and notable Indian Nobel Prize winners. Questions may ask about recent awardees (last 2–3 years) and first recipients or most famous recipients in each category.

Key ideas

• Bharat Ratna is India's highest civilian award, given for exceptional service in any field. It has no formal recommendations and is announced directly by the President. No more than three awards per year. Notable: no monetary grant, recipients get precedence in the Indian Order of Precedence.
• Padma Awards are announced on Republic Day each year. They come in three tiers: Padma Vibhushan (exceptional service), Padma Bhushan (distinguished service), Padma Shri (distinguished service in any field). Padma Shri is the fourth-highest civilian honour after Bharat Ratna and the two higher Padmas.
• Gallantry Awards recognise acts of bravery. They are divided into wartime (Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra, Vir Chakra) and peacetime (Ashok Chakra, Kirti Chakra, Shaurya Chakra). Param Vir Chakra is the highest military decoration, equivalent to the Victoria Cross or Medal of Honor.
• Nobel Prize winners from India include Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913), C.V. Raman (Physics, 1930), Mother Teresa (Peace, 1979), Amartya Sen (Economics, 1998), Kailash Satyarthi (Peace, 2014), and Abhijit Banerjee (Economics, 2019). Note that some laureates (e.g. Har Gobind Khorana) were Indian-born but held foreign citizenship at the time of award.
• Questions may pair an award with a field (sports, arts, science, public service) or ask you to identify the year of institution (e.g. Bharat Ratna instituted in 1954, Padma awards in 1954, Param Vir Chakra in 1950).

Watch out for

• Confusing Padma hierarchy: Students mix up Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan. Remember Vibhushan > Bhushan > Shri. Vibhushan is second only to Bharat Ratna among civilian awards.
• Mixing wartime and peacetime gallantry: Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra and Vir Chakra are for acts of valour in the face of the enemy (war). Ashok Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra are for peacetime bravery.
• Outdated Nobel laureate lists: Not updating your notes for recent winners. Always add the last 2–3 years of Indian or India-connected Nobel laureates from current affairs.

Quick reference

• Bharat Ratna: Highest civilian, instituted 1954, no limit on field, max 3/year, no cash prize.
• Padma trio: Vibhushan > Bhushan > Shri. All announced Republic Day, instituted 1954.
• Param Vir Chakra: Highest wartime gallantry, 21 recipients, mostly posthumous, instituted 1950.
• Ashok Chakra: Highest peacetime gallantry, equivalent status to PVC but not in war.
• Nobel (India): Tagore 1913 Lit, Raman 1930 Physics, Mother Teresa 1979 Peace, Sen 1998 Econ, Satyarthi 2014 Peace, Banerjee 2019 Econ.

Check yourself: 3 questions

This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 18 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.

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