The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports confirmed on Thursday, January 2 that India's double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker and the youngest world chess champion D Gukesh were added to the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award list for 2024-25. Indian hockey captain Harmanpreet Singh and para-athlete Praveen Kumar were the only ones nominated for the country's highest Sporting Honour earlier before the official list was released by the Sports Ministry.
Bhaker and her father Ram Kishan were gutted after the double Bronze medal winner was left out of the Khel Ratna Awards list. Kishan in a no-holds-barred conversation with the news agency PTI had reckoned that he shouldn't have let Bhaker play Olympic sport and got her into cricket or made her an IAS/IPS and get into administration so that she could decide who gets the award. The Sports Ministry in a statement then had said that it wasn't the final list and eventually, her name was added.
Gukesh, on the other hand, recently beat Ding Liren, to script history for India as he got a hero's welcome in his home town Chennai recently. Apart from the four Khel Ratna Awardees, there were 32 names shortlisted for the Arjuna Award. The long list included the likes of bronze medallist Aman Sehrawat, and para-gold medallists such as Navdeep Singh, Nitesh Kumar and hockey players like Sukhjeet Singh and Jarmanpreet Singh among many others.
India's legendary para-swimming gold medal winner Murlikant Petkar, who had a film made on him 'Chandu Champion' this year, is set to receive the Lifetime Arjuna Award alongside the sprinting great Sucha Singh. Among coaches, Subhash Rana (Para-Shooting), Deepali Deshpande (Shooting) and Sandeep Sangwan (Hockey) are set to be honoured with the Dronacharya award while S Muralidharan (Badminton) and Armando Agnelo Colaco (Football) will be awarded in the lifetime category.
All those conferred with respective awards will be honoured at a special function at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Friday, January 17.
Arjun Award recipient list: Jyothi Yarraji (Athletics), Annu Rani (Athletics), Nitu (Boxing), Saweety (Boxing), Vantika Agrawal (Chess), Salima Tete (Hockey), Abhishek (Hockey), Sanjay (Hockey), Jarmanpreet Singh (Hockey), Sukhjeet Singh (Hockey), Rakesh Kumar (Para-Archery), Preeti Pal (Para-Athletics), Jeevanji Deepthi (Para-Athletics), Ajeet Singh (Para-Athletics), Sachin Sarjerao Khilari (Para-Athletics), Shri Dharambir (Para-Athletics), Pranav Soorma (Para-Athletics), H Hokato Sema (Para-Athletics), Simran (Para-Athletics), Navdeep (Para-Athletics), Nitesh Kumar (Para-Badminton), Thulasimathi Murugesan (Para-Badminton), Nithya Sre Sumathy Sivan (Para-Badminton), Manish Ramadass (Para-Badminton), Kapil Parmar (Para-Judo), Mona Agarwal (Para-Shooting), Rubina Francis (Para-Shooting), Swapnil Suresh Kusale (Para-Shooting), Sarabjot Singh (Para-Shooting), Abhay Singh (Squash), Sajan Prakash (Swimming), Aman Sehrawat (Wrestling)
