Bharat Ratna will be conferred on former Prime Ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao and Chaudhary Charan Singh, and M.S. Swaminathan.
Socialist leader Karpoori Thakur, and former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani also received Bharat Ratna.
This year’s ( 2024) tally of five Bharat Ratna awardees, one more than the four announced in 1999, is the highest that has ever been announced in a single year.
Jat and farm leader Singh, who served as PM between 1979 and 1980 at the fag end of India’s first non-Congress government, has been given the award.
MS Swaminathan
⦿ Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (7 August 1925 – 28 September 2023) was an Indian agronomist, agricultural scientist, plant geneticist, administrator, and humanitarian.
⦿ Main architect of the green revolution in India for his leadership and role in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice.
⦿ His leadership as director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines was instrumental in his being awarded the first World Food Prize in 1987.
⦿ The United Nations Environment Programme has called him “the Father of Economic Ecology”
⦿ Swaminathan contributed basic research related to potato, wheat, and rice, in areas such as cytogenetics, ionizing radiation, and radiosensitivity
⦿ In 1999, he was one of three Indians, along with Gandhi and Tagore, on Time’s list of the 20 most influential Asian people of the 20th century
⦿ Swaminathan received Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, and the Albert Einstein World Science Award.
⦿ Swaminathan chaired the National Commission on Farmers in 2004.
⦿ He was nominated to the Parliament of India for one term between 2007 and 2013.
⦿ Swaminathan then spent 15 months in the United States.
⦿ Swaminathan returned to India in early 1954.
⦿ He joined Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi in October 1954 as an assistant cytogeneticist.
⦿ Swaminathan and Norman Borlaug collaborated, with Borlaug touring India and sending supplies for a range of Mexican dwarf varieties of wheat, which were to be bred with Japanese varieties.
⦿ In 1972, Swaminathan was appointed as the director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and a secretary to the Government of India.
⦿ In 1982, he was made the first Asian director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.
⦿ In 1987 he was awarded the first World Food Prize.
⦿ Swaminathan co-chaired the United Nations Millennium Project on hunger from 2002 to 2005 and was head of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs between 2002 and 2007.
⦿ Swaminathan was the chair of the National Commission on Farmers constituted in 2004.
In 2007, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam nominated Swaminathan to the Rajya Sabha.
⦿ Swaminathan died at home in Chennai on 28 September 2023, at age 98.
Chaudhary Charan Singh
⦿ Charan Singh was born on 23 December 1903 in a rural peasant family of village Noorpur, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.
⦿ He was active from 1931 in the Ghaziabad District Arya Samaj as well as the Meerut District Indian National Congress for which he was jailed twice by the British.
⦿ In 1938 he introduced an Agricultural Produce Market Bill in the Assembly which was published in the issues of The Hindustan Times of Delhi dated 31 March 1938.
⦿ Charan Singh followed Mahatma Gandhi in non-violent struggle for independence from the British Government, and was imprisoned several times.
⦿ Charan Singh left the Congress party in 1967, and formed his own political party, Bharatiya Kranti Dal
⦿ He became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1967, and later in 1970
⦿ He served as Deputy Prime Minister, Home Minister and Finance minister in the Janata government headed by Morarji Desai.
⦿ Charan Singh for the first time, became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on 3 April 1967 with the help of Samyukta Vidhayak Dal coalition.
⦿ On 21 October 1984, Charan Singh founded a new party Dalit Mazdoor Kisan Party, by merging Lok Dal, Democratic Socialist Party of Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, Rashtriya Congress of Ratubhai Adani and some leaders of Janata Party like Devi Lal.
P.V. Narasimha Rao
⦿ Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004), popularly known as P. V. Narasimha Rao, was an Indian lawyer, statesman and politician who served as the 9th prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996.
⦿ Introducing various liberal reforms to India’s economy.
⦿ He led an important administration, overseeing a major economic transformation and several home incidents affecting national security of India.
⦿ Rao, who held the Industries portfolio, was personally responsible for the dismantling of the Licence Raj, as this came under the purview of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, reversing the economic policies of Rajiv Gandhi’s government.
⦿ Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described Rao as the true father of economic reforms in India
⦿ Rao’s mandate, Manmohan Singh launched India’s globalisation angle of the reforms that implemented the International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies to rescue the almost bankrupt nation from economic collapse.
⦿ Rao was also referred to as Chanakya for his ability to steer economic and political legislation
⦿ Narasimha Rao fought and won elections from different parts of India such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha.
⦿ Adopted to avert the impending 1991 economic crisis, the reforms progressed furthest in the areas of opening up to foreign investment, reforming capital markets, deregulating domestic business, and reforming the trade regime.
⦿ Rao’s government’s goals were reducing the fiscal deficit, privatisation of the public sector and increasing investment in infrastructure.
⦿ Abolishing in 1992 the Controller of Capital Issues which decided the prices and number of shares that firms could issue.
⦿ Introducing the SEBI Act of 1992 and the Security Laws (Amendment) which gave SEBI the legal authority to register and regulate all security market intermediaries.
⦿ Opening up in 1992 of India’s equity markets to investment by foreign institutional investors and permitting Indian firms to raise capital on international markets by issuing Global Depository Receipts
⦿ Starting in 1994 of the National Stock Exchange as a computer-based trading system which served as an instrument to leverage reforms of India’s other stock exchanges. The NSE emerged as India’s largest exchange by 1996
⦿ Encouraging foreign direct investment by increasing the maximum limit on share of foreign capital in joint ventures from 40 to 51% with 100% foreign equity permitted in priority sectors.
