President Pratibha Devisingh Patil today conferred the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award for the year 2011 on ace shooter Gagan Narang. She also presented 15 Arjuna awards along with five Dronacharya awards and three Dhyanchand awards at an impressive function at Rashtrapati Bhawan. Narang received the country's highest sporting award for his contribution to the sport of shooting. He had notched up four gold medals at last year's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.Those who received Arjuna awards are Rahul Banerjee- Archery, Preeja Sreedharan – Athletics, Jwala Gutta – Badminton, M. Suranjoy Singh – Boxing, Sunil Chhetri – Football, Rajpal Singh – Hockey, Rakesh Kumar- Kabaddi, Tejaswini Bai – Kabaddi, Veerdhawal Vikram Khade – Swimming, Sanjay Kumar – Volleyball, Ravinder Singh – Wrestling, Katulu Ravi Kumar – Weightlifting, W. Sandhyarani Devi – Wushu and Prasatha Karmakar – Swimming.Dr. Kuntal Roy for Athletics and Rajinder Singh for Hockey were among the five who received Dronacharya Award. Sabir Ali along with two others received this year's Dhyan Chand Award. Indian pacer Zaheer Khan, tennis player Somdev Devvarman, gymnast Ashish Kumar and athlete Vikas Gowda could not receive their Arjuna awards due to their absence.
News On AIR | August 29, 2011 6:10 PM
President confers Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award on ace shooter Gagan Narang