Sunil Bharti Mittal conferred honorary knighthood by King Charles III

Bharti Enterprise chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal has been given an honorary knighthood by the British monarch for advancing business relations between both nations, Bharti Enterprises said in a statement on Wednesday. Mittal is the first Indian citizen to be awarded the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) under King Charles III.

Knighthoods or KBEs are usually conferred for a pre-eminent contribution in any field of activity.

Mittal has had a long connection with the United Kingdom. Bharti’s Airtel Africa was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2019 and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. Bharti Enterprises-backed satellite communications company, a subsidiary of Eutelsat OneWeb, has its centre of operations in London. The latter, meanwhile, has applied for standard listing on the London Stock Exchange.

He has also been a key part of business-to-business ties between both nations, being a member of the India-UK CEO Forum. He has been awarded the Honorary Doctor of Civil Law from Newcastle University and an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Leeds, Bharti Enterprises said. He is a member of the Vice Chancellor’s Circle of Advisors at the University of Cambridge, it added.

He has also served on the Governing Body of the London Business School (LBS) and as a Member of the India Advisory Group at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). In 2007, Mittal was bestowed with the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award in India.

Three other Indians have so far been awarded Honorary KBEs by the late Queen Elizabeth II. These include former Tata Steel Director Jamshed Irani in 1997, Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar in 2001, and former Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata in 2009.