Who among the following is the recipient of Bharat Ratna for 2024 ?

Question

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Correct — C, M. S. Swaminathan. Five Bharat Ratnas were announced for 2024, an unusually large cohort: Karpoori Thakur, Lal Krishna Advani, Chaudhary Charan Singh, P. V. Narasimha Rao and Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan — four of the five posthumously. Only one of those names appears among the options, so the question is decided the moment you can recall the cohort. Swaminathan, who lived from 1925 to 2023, was the plant geneticist who made the Green Revolution work in India. Working with Norman Borlaug from the mid-1960s, he led the introduction and Indian adaptation of the semi-dwarf, high-yielding Mexican wheat varieties whose short stiff stems could carry a heavy grain head without lodging under fertiliser and irrigation — the single change that turned India from a food-importing country under the PL-480 arrangements into a self-sufficient one within a decade. He directed the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, served as Director-General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, went on to head the International Rice Research Institute at Manila from 1982 to 1988, and was the first recipient of the World Food Prize in 1987, using the money to found the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation at Chennai. His second act is the one that still shapes Indian policy debate: he chaired the National Commission on Farmers from 2004, whose reports recommended that the minimum support price be fixed at least fifty per cent above the weighted average cost of production — the formula every subsequent farmers' agitation has cited. There is also a Bihar dimension to this cohort worth carrying: Karpoori Thakur, twice Chief Minister of Bihar, was in the same list, which is why BPSC could reasonably expect its candidates to know the 2024 names.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) The one name on this list that has never received the Bharat Ratna at all, which makes it the cleanest elimination once you know that. He was Prime Minister of India from November 1990 to June 1991, heading a Samajwadi Janata Party government supported from outside by the Congress, and before that a Young Turk within the Congress and a leader of the Janata Party. Distinguished, but not a Bharat Ratna.  (b) A genuine Bharat Ratna, five years too early. Pranab Mukherjee — President of India from 2012 to 2017, and before that Finance Minister, External Affairs Minister and Defence Minister — received the award in 2019, in a cohort with Nanaji Deshmukh and Bhupen Hazarika. The option works by pairing a real recipient with the wrong year, which is how most award questions are built.  (d) The other real recipient with the wrong year, and the trap for a candidate who reasons 'the answer must be a scientist'. Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao, the solid-state and materials chemist and National Research Professor, received the Bharat Ratna in 2014 along with Sachin Tendulkar. Two scientists on one page is deliberate; only Swaminathan belongs to 2024.

Concept: The Bharat Ratna is India's highest civilian honour, instituted on 2 January 1954 for exceptional service or performance of the highest order. It carries no monetary grant. The recipient receives a sanad — a certificate signed by the President — and a medallion shaped like a peepal leaf, rimmed in platinum, with the sun embossed on one face and the words 'Bharat Ratna' on the other. The first three recipients, in 1954, were C. Rajagopalachari, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and C. V. Raman. Conferment has been suspended twice, between July 1977 and January 1980 and again from the early 1990s to December 1995. The award confers no title and no precedence: the Supreme Court held in Balaji Raghavan in 1996 that these decorations are not titles within the meaning of Article 18(1) of the Constitution, and recipients may not use 'Bharat Ratna' as a prefix or suffix to their names. It may be awarded posthumously, which it frequently is.

State PCS 2025 Q14 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q14 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer