Bharat Ratna

About Bharat Ratna:

• The Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India. Instituted in 1954, the award is conferred "in recognition of exceptional service/performance of the highest order", without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex.
• The award was originally limited to achievements in the arts, literature, science, and public services, but the government expanded the criteria to include "any field of human endeavour" in December 2011.
• The recommendations for the Bharat Ratna are made by the Prime Minister to the President, with a maximum of three nominees being awarded per year.
• Recipients receive a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a peepal-leaf–shaped medallion; there is no monetary grant associated with the award. Bharat Ratna recipients rank seventh in the Indian order of precedence.
• There is no formal provision that recipients of the Bharat Ratna should be Indian citizens. It has been awarded to a naturalised Indian citizen, Mother Teresa in 1980, and to two non-Indians, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan of Pakistan in 1987 and the former South African president Nelson Mandela in 1990.
• Sachin Tendulkar, at the age of 40, became the youngest person and first athlete to receive the honour.
• In a special ceremony on 18 April 1958, Dhondo Keshav Karve was awarded on his 100th birthday.
• As of 2015, the award has been conferred upon 45 people with 12 posthumous declarations.
• The award was briefly suspended twice in its history. The first suspension occurred after Morarji Desai was sworn in as the fourth Prime Minister in 1977.
• His government withdrew all personal civil honours on 13 July 1977. The suspension was rescinded on 25 January 1980, after Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister.
• The civilian awards were suspended again in mid-1992, when two Public-Interest Litigations were filed, one in the Kerala High Court and another in the Madhya Pradesh High Court, challenging the "constitutional validity" of the awards.
• The awards were reintroduced by the Supreme Court in December 1995, following the conclusion of the litigation.

Regulations

• The Bharat Ratna is conferred "in recognition of exceptional service/performance of the highest order", without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex.
• The 1954 statutes did not allow posthumous awards, but this was subsequently modified in the January 1955 statute, and Lal Bahadur Shastri became the first recipient to be honoured posthumously in 1966.
• Although there is no formal nomination process, recommendations for the award can only be made by the Prime Minister to the President with a maximum number of three nominees being awarded per year.
• However, in 1999, four individuals were awarded the honour. The recipient receives a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a medallion without any monetary grant.
• Under the terms of Article 18 (1) of the Constitution,[b] the recipients cannot use the award as a prefix or suffix to their name, although recipients may use either the expressions "Awarded Bharat Ratna by the President" or "Recipient of Bharat Ratna Award" to indicate that they have been honoured with the award.

World Integrated Medicine international forum

About World Integrated Medicine international forum:

Mission:

The mission of the World Integrated Medicine Forum is to further develop evidence based Traditional and Integrated Systems of Medicine by promoting public-private co-operation.

Vision:

• The World Integrated Medicine Forum (WIMF) engages government, political, business and academic leaders to shape global and regional agendas concerning Integrated Medicine.
• Progress and change happens by creating mutual understanding and bringing together diverse stakeholders from the global community.
• This will foster the implementation of Traditional and Integrated systems of medicine into health care and health promotion both globally and regionally.

What makes the World Integrated Medicine Forum unique?

A place where key stakeholders in the rapidly growing field of Traditional and Integrated Medicine can meet for high level strategic discussions on the current status and future

• Focused on a specific theme
• Invitation Only Events
• High level, strategic discussion on themes affecting the delivery, availability and development of evidence based Traditional and Integrated Medicine systems.

About Forum 2019:

Vision of the Forum:

• The increasing demand for homeopathic products by patients and health care providers worldwide needs to be underpinned by appropriate regulatory frameworks which respect the national context as well as benefit from experiences and collaboration at an international level.
• This forum was organised by Central Council for Research in Homeopathy (CCRH), with the support of Ministry of AYUSH, Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia Convention of the United States (HPCUS) and European Coalition on Homeopathic & Anthroposophic Medicinal Products (ECHAMP), Pharmacopoeia Commission of Indian Medicine and Homoeopathy and Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO).
• Forum discussions ranged from Strategic perspectives and possible scenarios on advancing International Collaboration bilateral collaboration;
• updates on the regulatory status of Homoeopathic medicines in South Africa, Argentina, Cuba, Qatar, Croatia, Malaysia, Japan, Hongkong and Sri Lanka etc.; Pharmaceutical quality / availability; Safeguarding the quality of homeopathic medicines in Europe; Advancing pharmaceutical quality standards;

UDAN 3.0

UDAN Round 3

The Minister said, following two successful rounds of bidding, the Ministry of Civil Aviation launched the largest bidding round under the highly successful UDAN Scheme, also integrating a number of iconic tourism sites in coordination with the Ministry of Tourism.

• Inclusion of Tourism Routes under UDAN 3 in coordination with the Ministry of Tourism
• Inclusion of Seaplanes for connecting Water Aerodromes, and
• Bringing in a number of routes in the North-East Region under the ambit of UDAN

About UDAN:

What is it?

• UDAN(Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) is the Government’s initiative to make air travel to India’s tier II and tier III cities affordable to the aam aadmi.
• The idea is to put smaller cities and remote regions on the aviation map, by getting domestic airlines to ply more regional routes.
• Objective is "letting the common citizen of the country fly", aimed at making air travel affordable and widespread, to boost inclusive national economic development, job growth and air transport infrastructure development of all regions and states of India.
• Under the scheme, the Government offers incentives to airlines to flag off new flights to neglected smaller cities and towns by providing Viability Gap Funding to make these operations profitable.
• Airlines are required to bid for exclusive rights to fly on the regional routes opened up under the scheme. They must sell a specific number of seats on each flight at a fixed fare of 2,500 for one hour of flying.
• In the case of helicopter operations, allowed for the first time now, fares are capped at 2,500 for a 30-minute flight.
• The scheme has two components. The First component is to develop new and enhance the existing regional airports to increase the number of operational airports for the scheduled civilian flights from 70 (in May 2016, total 98 operational including army airports) to at least 150 airports (by December 2018) with regular scheduled flights.
• Initially more than 100 underserved (no more than 7 scheduled flights per week) and unserved regional airports will be developed by December 2018, for which the initial funding of Rs 45,000 million for the enhancement of 50 regional airports was approved in May 2017.
• Out of total 70 airports included in round-I, 43 are regional airports to be newly operationalised, RCS-Udan operations have commenced from 13 regional airports and additional 12 regional airports are ready to receive flights, 18 regional airports still require significant upgrade (November 2017).
• The Second component is to add several hundred financially-viable capped-airfare new regional flight routes to connect more than 100 underserved and unserved airports in smaller towns with each other as well as with well served airports in
• bigger cities by using "Viability Gap Funding" (VGF) where needed.
• Initially, three separate rounds of bidding for the award of routes will be concluded by the end of 2018.
• Union government share of "Viability Gap Funding" is from the cess applied to flights to popular routes to main cities and respective state governments have also offered additional benefits to the flight operators to make UDAN-RCS viable.

Awards

About Padma Vibhushan:

• The Padma Vibhushan is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, second only to the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service", without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex.
• The award criteria include "service in any field including service rendered by Government servants" including doctors and scientists, but excluding those working with the public sector undertakings.
• As of 2019, the award has been bestowed on 307 individuals, including twelve posthumous and 20 non-citizen recipients.
• During 1 May and 15 September of every year, the recommendations for the award are submitted to the Padma Awards Committee, constituted by the Prime Minister of India.
• The recommendations are received from all the state and the union territory governments, the Ministries of the Government of India, the Bharat Ratna and previous Padma Vibhushan award recipients, the Institutes of Excellence, the Ministers, the Chief Ministers and the Governors of State, and the Members of Parliament including private individuals.
• The committee later submits their recommendations to the Prime Minister and the President of India for the further approval. The award recipients are announced on Republic Day.

About Padma Bhushan

• The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri.
• Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service of a high order...without distinction of race, occupation, position or sex."
• The award criteria include "service in any field including service rendered by Government servants" including doctors and scientists, but exclude those working with the public sector undertakings.
• As of 2019, the award has been bestowed on 1254 individuals, including twenty-one posthumous and ninety-six non-citizen recipients.