President confers Khel Ratna Award to Sindhu, Sakshi, Deepa and Jitu

dynamitenews.com
New Delhi/ 29 August 2016. President Pranab Mukherjee on the National Sports Day today conferred Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award to Rio Olympics heroes including Silver medalist shutter PV Sindhu, Bronze medalist wrestler Sakshi Malik, gymnast Dipa Karmakar and shooter Jitu Rai at a glittering ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan here.

Fifteen other sportspersons were presented with the Arjuna Award and three with the Dhyan Chand Award.

Besides this, the Punjabi University of Patiala was awarded the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (MAKA) Trophy 2015-16 for best sports performance at inter-university, national and international competitions.

A Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awardee receives a medal and a citation, a cash prize of Rs.7.5 lakh. The Arjuna, Dronacharya and Dhyan Chand awardees get statuettes, certificates and cash prize of Rs.5 lakh each.

Here is the list of other Awardees:

Dronacharya Awards 2016: Nagapuri Ramesh (athletics), Sagar Mal Dhayal (boxing), Raj Kumar Sharma (cricket), Bishweshwar Nandi (gymnastics), S Pradeep Kumar (swimming, lifetime) and Mahabir Singh (wrestling, lifetime).

Arjuna Awards 2016: Rajat Chauhan (archery), Lalita Babar (athletics), Sourav Kothari (billiards and snooker), Shiva Thapa (boxing), Ajinkya Rahane (cricket), Subrata Paul (football), Rani (hockey), VR Raghunath (hockey), Gurpreet Singh (shooting), Apurvi Chandela (shooting), Soumyajit Ghosh (table tennis), Vinesh (wrestling), Amit Kumar (wrestling), Sandeep Singh Mann (para-athletics), Virender Singh (wrestling, deaf).

Dhyan Chand Award: Satti Geetha (athletics), Sylvanus Dung Dung (hockey), Rajendra Pralhad Shelke (rowing).