Bharat Ratna Controversy

India has not given highest civilian award "BHARAT RATNA" since 2001. A young journalist (TV reporter) started a furore by presenting a report on why india has not been able to find suitable candidate for Bharat Ratna and also suggested name of "Sachin Tendulkar" for the same.

Now the politics of "Bharat Ratna" started.The government of India started receiving messages from various political parties, recommending various politicians, who are either dead or retired or soon to retire or in a state of semi-retirement, for the Bharat Ratna. The Bharatiya Janata Party has recommended Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Bahujan Samaj Party has recommended the late Mr. Kanshi Ram, the communists are supposed to have been peddling the name of Mr. Jyoti Basu, whereas the Akalis are now supposed to have joined the race with Mr. Parkash Singh Badal as their candidate and the Telugu Desam Party is not far behind with their demand for the award to go to the late Mr. N. T. Rama Rao.

Bharat Ratna is india's highest civilian award, awarded for the highest degrees of national service. This service includes artistic, literary, and scientific achievements, as well as "recognition of public service of the highest order. Holders of the Bharat Ratna do not carry any special title or other honorific, but they get a special place in order of precedence of the country. Till date, Bharat Ratna has been awarded to 40 persons including two non-Indians (Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Nelson Mandela) and a naturalised Indian citizen (Mother Teresa).

Politicial parties have forgotton that bharat ratna is award for good humanitarian work and not reward for loyality towards any politicial party. It can definitely be not decided by political parties.

New bharat ratna should be one who identifies with the rising india and with whom indian population identifies and is defintely a gem (ratna). It could be N R Murthy for his work in indian software industry,it could be sachin tendulkar for his contribution to cricket.