10 Feb : Eminent exponent of Hindustani classical music Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was officially conferred the "Bharat Ratna’ at his residence in Pune on Tuesday by a President’s emissary.
A simple 15-minute ceremony marked the occasion as Additional Secretary in the Union Home ministry A F Ahmed presented the citation and the ‘Ratna’ to the doyen of ‘Kirana Gharana’ who turned 88 on 4th February.
Maharashtra Cultural Affairs Minister Harshawardhan Patil and some disciples of the maestro were present along with his family members at the function.Pandit Joshi, who had expressed his inability to go to Delhi to receive the highest civilian honour on health grounds, thanked the President and countrymen for the award.
His sons-Raghavendra, Srinivas and Jayant told mediapersons that President Pratibha Patil wanted to come down to Pune personally to present the honour to Panditji.
"It was however, his wish to keep it a low-key affair and he did not want the President to take the trouble of personally coming over," they added.
However, the media was not given access to witness the function.
A disciple of Bhimsen Joshi Anand Bhate said, though not in not sound health, his "Guruji" looked cheerful as he exchanged pleasantries with the visiting dignitaries. (NZ-10/02)
Following is the list of Bharat Ratna awardees since its institution in 1954:
1) Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1954)
2) Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1954)
3) C V Raman (1954)
4) Bhagwan Das (1955)
5) Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya (1955)
6) Jawaharlal Nehru (1955)
7) Govind Ballabh Pant (1957)
8) Dhondo Keshav Karve (1958)
9) Dr B C Roy (1961)
10) Purushottam Das Tandon (1961)
11) Dr Rajendra Prasad (1962)
12) Dr Zakir Hussain (1963)
13) Pandurang Vaman Kane (1963)
14) Lal Bahadur Shastri (1966)
15) Indira Gandhi (1971)
16) V V Giri (1975)
17) K Kamaraj (1976)
18) Mother Teresa (1980)
19) Acharya Vinoba Bhave (1983)
20) Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1987)
21) M G Ramachandran (1988)
22) B R Ambedkar (1990)
23) Nelson Mandela (1990)
24) Rajiv Gandhi (1991)
25) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1991)
26) Morarji Desai (1991)
27) Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1992)
28) J R D Tata (1992)
29) Satyajit Ray (1992)
30) A P J Abdul Kalam (1997)
31) Gulzarilal Nanda (1997)
32) Aruna Asaf Ali (1997)
33) M S Subbulakshmi (1998)
34) Chidambaram Subramaniam (1998)
35) Jayaprakash Narayan (1998)
36) Pandit Ravi Shankar (1999)
37) Amartya Sen (1999)
38) Gopinath Bordoloi (1999)
39) Lata Mangeshkar (2001)
40) Ustad Bismillah Khan (2001)
41) Pandit Bhimsen Joshi (2008)