President Kovind honours sportspersons with awards on National Sports Day, Malik gets Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award

President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday conferred the National Sports Awards and National Adventure Awards on sportspersons at a function at Rashtrapati Bhawan here on the occasion of National Sports Day.

President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday conferred the National Sports Awards and National Adventure Awards on sportspersons at a function at Rashtrapati Bhawan here on the occasion of National Sports Day. Para-athlete Deepa Malik was presented with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, the highest sports honour in the country.

Fourteen sportspersons were honoured with the Arjuna Award, during the ceremony. They were S Bhaskaran (Body Building), Sonia Lather (Boxing), Chinglensana Singh Kangujam (Hockey), Ajay Thakur (Kabaddi), Gaurav Singh Gill (Motor Sports), Pramod Bhagat (Para Sports, Badminton), Harmeet Rajul Desai (Table Tennis), Pooja Dhanda (Wrestling), Fouaad Mirza (Equestrian), Gurpreet Singh Sandhu (Football), Poonam Yadav (Cricket), Swapna Barman (Athletics), Bhamidipati Sai Praneeth (Badminton), and Simran Singh Shergill (Polo). Dhyan Chand Award for the year 2019 was conferred given to Manuel Fredricks (Hockey), Arup Basak (Table Tennis), Manoj Kumar (Wrestling), Nitten Kirrtane (Tennis), and C Lalremsanga (Archery).

Aparna Kumar (Land Adventure) and Late Shri Dipankar Ghosh (Award received by his family member) (Land Adventure), Manikandan K. (Land Adventure), Prabhat Raju Koli (Water Adventure), RameshwerJangra (Air Adventure), and Wangchuk Sherpa (Life Time Achievement) were honoured with Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awards. Indian shooter Gagan Narang's foundation under the name Gagan Narang Sports Promotion Foundation received the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar. Rayalaseema Development Trust also received the same honour during the ceremony.

Dronacharya award was bestowed to Vimal Kumar (badminton) and Sandeep Gupta (table tennis) in regular category. Whereas, in the life-time category, Merzban Patel (Hockey), Rambir Singh Khokhar (kabaddi), and Sanjay Bhardwaj (cricket) were honoured. Panjab University, Chandigarh, was conferred with the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (MAKA) Trophy. It got a certificate and award money of Rs 15 lakh.

Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awardees, apart from a medal and a citation, received a cash prize of Rs 7.5 lakh, whereas Arjuna, Dronacharya and Dhyan Chand Awardees received statuettes, certificates and a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh each. A trophy and a citation were given to the entity in the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar. A cash award of Rs 5 lakh each was given to Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awardees along with statuette, certificates. (ANI)

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