Awards and Honours
About 6 min · General Awareness · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 321 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
This topic tests your knowledge of India's civilian awards (Bharat Ratna, Padma awards), international honours (Nobel Prize, Booker Prize), and sports/military awards. The questions are straightforward fact-recall: "Who received the Bharat Ratna in 2019?" or "Which field does the Abel Prize recognize?"
Key ideas
- Civilian Awards Hierarchy: Bharat Ratna is India's highest civilian honour, followed by Padma Vibhushan (exceptional service), Padma Bhushan (distinguished service), and Padma Shri (distinguished contribution). The Padma awards are announced on Republic Day eve; the Bharat Ratna has no fixed date.
- Nobel Prize Categories: Six categories exist — Physics, Chemistry, Medicine/Physiology, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences. Indian-origin recipients include Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913), CV Raman (Physics, 1930), and Abhijit Banerjee (Economics, 2019).
- Sports Awards: Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (now Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna, India's highest sports honour), Arjuna Award (outstanding performance), Dronacharya Award (coaching excellence), and Dhyan Chand Award (lifetime contribution).
- Military Honours: Param Vir Chakra (highest wartime gallantry), Ashok Chakra (highest peacetime gallantry), Vir Chakra, and Shaurya Chakra. Know that PVC recipients are extremely rare (21 total since 1950).
- Literary Awards: Booker Prize (fiction in English), Pulitzer Prize (US journalism and arts), and Jnanpith Award (Indian literature).
Quick reference
- Bharat Ratna is highest civilian award; no more than 3 per year; 53 total recipients till 2024.
- Padma sequence: Vibhushan (exceptional) > Bhushan (distinguished) > Shri (contribution).
- India has 9 Nobel laureates (citizens or of Indian origin: Tagore, C.V. Raman, Har Gobind Khorana, Mother Teresa, S. Chandrasekhar, Amartya Sen, V. Ramakrishnan, Kailash Satyarthi, Abhijit Banerjee;
- Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna renamed in 2021; highest sports award with Rs 25 lakh.
- Param Vir Chakra is India's highest military decoration; 21 recipients (14 posthumous).
Check yourself: 3 questions
1. Which of the following is India's highest civilian award?
2. The Nobel Prize is awarded in how many categories?
3. Padma Shri awardee Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in which year?
This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 21 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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