Awards in India

For people, awards are instances of glory and pride in life. When awards are given forth to people, it is an honor for the achievements, talents, work and performances of a person in his or her lifetime. Different categories of awards have special meaning in the respective fields and when all these awards are taken together, a number of ceremonies can be seen to be prevalent in India. These are awards in categories of sports, music, television, literary, arts, gallantry and some others. Various celebrities from different walks of life such as sports, artists, technicians and actors are presented with these awards, based on their passion for their field of work and abilities. For bravery and courage, the awards which are presented are Mahavir Chakra, Paramvir Chakra and Vir Chakra. These are known by the name of gallantry awards. In the field of literature and dominating forms of writing, the awards which are given in different states are Ananda Puraskar, Kalidas Samman, Rabindra Puraskar, Hindu Literary Prize and Vayalar Award. Celebrating the spirit and talent of the Hindi movie industry, some awards which are given are Big Star Entertainment Awards, Apsara Film & Television Producers Guild Awards, Movie Awards, Filmfare Awards, Dadasaheb Phalke Awards and so on.

Famous Awards in India

Bharat Ratna

In Indian Republic, the highest award for civilians is that of Bharat Ratna. This award can be conferred on any Indian citizen, irrespective of the occupation, race, sex or position. To get the Bharat Ratna, there has to be recommendations forwarded by the Indian Prime Minister to the Indian President. Three such awards can be given in one calendar year maximally. The rank of the Bharat Ratna is 7th in order of being given, while it doesn’t have any financial benefits. By this award, people will not be able to have any titles or even letters as pre and post nominal and they are not allowed by the constitutional rules to use this award for post nominal and title benefits. Recipients of this particular award can however, mention this award in their resumes or in business cards or letter heads.

Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award

Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna is given for sporting achievements as the highest award in India. Literarily, the sports gem is the meaning for the words Khel Ratna. This award has been named according to the previous Prime Minister of India, Late Rajiv Gandhi. This award includes a medal, besides a good amount of cash and a scroll. Till the year 2004-05, the cash amount, which was given was about Rs 500,000/-. In recent years, it has been increased to about Rs 750,000.

This Khel Ratna was initiated in the year 1991-1992, in order to recognize the best talent in the sports sector and bestow the highest recognition. Before RGKR, Arjuna Awards were started, which have been given in various disciplines of sports in India for outstanding contributions. Over and beyond these Arjuna Awards, Khel Ratna was supposed to be an overtly higher honor, bestowed upon performances of outstanding nature in the field of sports which might be for an individual as well as for a team or in other arenas of sporting performances in a certain year.

Filmfare Award

Filmfare Awards are given on an annual basis by Times Group for excellence in cinema in both artistic as well as technical field in the Hindi film industry of the country. The ceremony related to Filmfare is the most prominent and the oldest in the history of Hindi films in the country. Starting in 1954, the Filmfare awards were first given in this year, when the National Film Awards were started. In the initial years, these awards were called as the Clare Awards and sometimes The Clares, as per the name of the editor of Times of India, Clare Mendonca. The awards were chosen by the system of dual voting which came into force in 1956.

Indian Telly Award

Indian Telly Awards are given for the television shows in India, organized by the Indian Television Dot Com, which presently is the largest awards ceremony in Indian Television. This organization has also started the Indian News Television Summit as well as The NT Awards. These two events also are aimed at the news industry in television.

Ashok Chakra Award

Ashok Chakra award is given for courage and valor or self sacrifice in Indian Military for an event in the battle field. It is said to have an equivalent status to the Param Vir Chakra and given for some daring act of bravery or self sacrifice and valor, when not fighting in the battlefield. This award can be given to both civilians and military personnel, even after death. This award was meant to replace the previous award of British George Cross.

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