President confers Arjuna Award to Manipur’s Chinglensana Kangujam

New Delhi: With a total of 31 sportspersons being bestowed upon the prestigious National Sports Awards at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Thursday, Chinglensana Kangujam from Manipur was among the 19 players who received the Arjuna Award for hockey. Meanwhile, C Lalremsanga from Mizoram was conferred with the Dhyan Chand Award for his contributions in archery.

Commemorating the contributions of Major Dhyan Chand Singh towards Indian hockey, the nation celebrated his birthday as National Sports Day (Rashtriya Khel Diwas) on Thursday.

As a part of the programme, the President conferred National Sports Awards like Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, Arjuna Award, Dronacharya Award and Dhyan Chand Awards to the winners, who enhanced the value of the tricolour in international level.

In a break from the usual convention, the awards this year were decided by a 12-member panel which featured former football captain Bhaichung Bhutia and six-time world champion boxer M C Mary Kom, among others.

This year, Deepa Malik was the first female para-athlete to win the prestigious sports award Khel Ratna of India. She was a joint recipient with wrestler Bajrang Punia. Named after the former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award is the highest sporting honour of the country.

There are a total of 19 recipients for the Arjuna Awards which include, Chinglensana Kangujam, a field hockey player from Manipur.

Arjuna Awards are given by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India to recognise outstanding achievements in sports. Along with the scroll, the recipient of this award also receives a cash prize of Rs 5lakh and a bronze statue of Arjuna. Here are the other recipients of this award

· Ravindra Jadeja for cricket; Mohammed Anas Yahiya for athletics; Gurpreet Singh Sandhu for football; Sonia Lather for boxing; S Baskaran for bodybuilding; Ajay Thakur for kabaddi; Anjum Moudgil for shooting; Bhamidipati Sai Praneeth for badminton; Tajinder Pal Singh Toor for athletics; Pramod Bhagat for para sports-badminton; Harmeet Rajul Desai for table tennis; Dhanda for wrestling; Fouaad Mirza for equestrian; Simran Singh Shergill for polo; Poonam Yadav for cricket; Swapna Barman for athletics; Sundar Singh Gurjar for para sports-athletics and Gaurav Singh Gill for motorsports

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With the aim to motivate coaches and trainers to work with focus and train the future sports persons, Dronacharya Awards are presented to honour the contributions and role of instructors, trainers and coaches. Here is the list of its recipients for the regular category: Vimal Kumar for badminton; Sandeep Gupta for table tennis; Mohinder Singh Dhillon for athletics.

Dronacharya Award is also give with a lifetime category and its recipients are: Mezban Patel for hockey; Rambir Singh Khokhar for kabaddi; Sanjay Bhardwaj for cricket

Former archer from Mizoram, C Lalremsanga, who represented India in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was also conferred with the distinguished Dhyan Chand Award. He has also represented India in the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima and five World Championships.

Other recipients of this award are: Manuel Fredericks for hockey; Arup Basak for table tennis; Manoj Kumar for wrestling; Nitten Kirrtane for tennis.
The Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awards will also be given at the Rashtrapati Bhawan by the President of India on Thursday. The awards are given in four categories namely, Land Adventure, Water Adventure, Air Adventure and life Time Achievement.

Aparna Kumar for land adventure; Lt Shri Dipankar Ghosh for land adventure; Manikandan K. for land adventure; Prabhat Raju Koli for water adventure; Wangchuk Sherpa for life time achievement.

Along with the sports awards, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also launched the “Fit India Movement” with the aim to make physical activities and sports a part of daily life of the citizens.

Union sports minister Kiren Rijiju took to the micro blogging site Twitter to urge people of the country to be a part of this movement. He wrote, “India is all ready to join hon’ble PM Shri narendramodi ji for the launch of #FitIndiaMovement at 10 AM. Let’s become fit and make India a fit nation.”