07Awards & Professional Recognition
The Record
Two national police medals, listed below in the official terminology of the award, with the year and occasion on which each was conferred. Nothing is merged, paraphrased or upgraded.
Indian police medals are conferred by the President of India on the recommendation of the Ministry of Home Affairs, announced on Republic Day and Independence Day. They are distinct awards with distinct criteria, and the distinction between them is preserved here.
Catalogue of awards
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2024Republic Day
President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service
Conferred in the Republic Day 2024 list. At the time of the award, Niket Kaushik held the rank of Additional Director General of Police. The President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service is the senior of the two service medals in the Indian police awards system, recognising a record of distinguished service over the course of a career.
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2012Republic Day
Police Medal for Meritorious Service
Conferred in the Republic Day 2012 list. The official award record identifies him against the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Mumbai, Maharashtra, at Deputy Inspector General of Police rank. The Police Medal for Meritorious Service recognises meritorious service in the police forces and is a separate award from the President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service listed above.
On terminology. The two awards above are not variants of one another and are not combined here. Police Medal for Meritorious Service and President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service are the exact official designations used in the Ministry of Home Affairs award lists. Not published here: any award, commendation or honour that could not be matched to an official list.
01Professional Standing
Beyond the medal list
Recognition in a police career is not confined to award lists. It also appears in the appointments an officer is entrusted with, and in being asked to contribute to how the profession thinks about itself.
The photograph alongside was taken at the headquarters of the Bureau of Police Research and Development in New Delhi, at a two-day national conference on the future of policing in the digital age held on 17 and 18 May 2018. BPR&D is the Government of India body responsible for police research, modernisation and standards; its convenings bring together senior officers from across the states on questions that cut across every force.
The appointments themselves carry a similar signal. Command of a statewide specialist force, supervision of a five-district range, headship of the state's anti-corruption agency at Additional Director General rank, and command of a metropolitan commissionerate are each posts a state government fills deliberately.
Source. Conference identification is taken from the event banner visible in the photograph: Bureau of Police Research and Development Headquarters, Mahipalpur, New Delhi, 17–18 May 2018. No claim is made here about the content of any remarks delivered.
02Method
How this record is kept
Awards are listed under their exact official name. Popular abbreviations and informal descriptions are not used.
Each award carries the year and the occasion on which it was announced. Where the rank at conferment is recorded, it is stated.
Distinct awards are never merged into a single entry, and a later honour never replaces an earlier one.
No award is listed unless it appears in an official record. An honour that cannot be matched to one is omitted rather than approximated.
