Vir Chakra

Vir Chakra
Award Information
Type	War Time Gallantry
Category	National Bravery
Instituted	1952
First Awarded	1947
Last Awarded	1999
Awarded by	Government of India
Description	The third highest military decoration in India.
Ribbon	Half dark blue, half orange
Award Rank
Maha Vir Chakra ← Vir Chakra → none

Vir Chakra is an Indian gallantry award presented for acts of yahan in the battlefield. Award of the decoration carried with it the right to use Vr.C. as a postnominal abbreviation (note the care to distinguish this abbreviation from that for the Victoria Cross (V.C.). It is third in precedence in the war time gallantry awards and comes after the Param Vir Chakra and Maha Vir Chakra.

Origin

Established by the President of India on 26 January 1950 (with effect from 15 August 1947). The statutes were amended 12 January 1952 to readjust the order of wearing as new decorations were established.

Appearance

The medal is 1-3/8 inch circular silver medal. A five pointed star, with the chakra in the center, and, on this, the domed gilded state emblem. The decoration is named on the rim and suspended from a swiveling straight-bar suspender. The decoration is almost always named and dated on the edge. Around a plain center, two legends separated by lotus flowers; above Vir Chakra in Hindi and in English. The ribbon is 32 mm, half dark blue and half orange-saffron. Dark blue 16 mm, saffron 16 mm.

Notable Vir Chakra Awardees

Some are listed:

1. 2nd Lt. Hardev Pal Nayyar SS-23397
2. Denzil Keelor
3. Trevor Keelor
4. Krishan Kant Saini
5. Mohammad Ahmed Zaki
6. Satish Nambiar
7. BT Pandit
8. Capt Ashok K Karkare,Arty
9. RN Gupta
10. Doraiswamy
11. Arun Prakash
12. Jerry Prem Raj
13. Rajiq Khan
14. Shish Ram Gill
15. Laxminarayan Ramdas
16. Zafar Ali Shah
17. Harbaksh Singh
18. Subedar Randhir Singh
19. Sunil Khokhar
20. Vijayant Thapar
21. Gopal Krishna Trivedi
22. Haneef Uddin
23. Zorawar Chand Bakhshi
24. Gurdev Singh Hans
25. Gopalam Lakshminarayana Swamy
26. Wing Commander Vishnu Narain Johri
27. Nb Sub Chuni Lal,AC, VrC, SM (Gallantry)
28. Lieutenant Ram Lal Chauhan (1947)
29. Ajay Ahuja

The award carries with it a cash allowance and, in some cases, a lump sum cash award. This has been a rather controversial issue throughout the life of the decoration. From 1 February 1999, the central government set a monthly stipend of Rs. 850 for recipients of the award. In addition, many states have established individual pension rewards for the recipients of the decoration.