Former Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni, Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu and national badminton coach P Gopichand are in the fray for the Padma Bhushan award, India’s third highest civilian honour. Dhoni has earlier won the Padma Shri in 2009.
MS Dhoni had announced his resignation as Indian limited overs captian earlier in January. This thus brought an end at the helm of the Indian cricket team in which Dhoni captained the team for 10 years between 2007 and 2017. In that period, he led India to three ICC trophy triumphs including the 2011 World Cup. He is the only ODI captain to have done so. It was also under him that India acheived the number one Test ranking.
Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli and Olympic bronze medal-winning wrestler Sakshi Malik are among five sports persons who will get the Padma awards, it was announced on Wednesday.
Gymnast Dipa Karmakar, discus thrower Vikas Gowda and Indian hockey captain PR Sreejesh have also been named for the Padma awards.
PV Sindhu had a stellar 2016. While Saina Nehwal, the favourite to win India a medal in the Rio Olympics, crashed out early on due to injury, Sindhu rampaged through the fixtures to earn herself a place in the final. She thus became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic Silver medal.
She then went on to end the Chinese super series and thus ended the hegemony that Chinese players have had on the title. She went on to reach the finals of the Hong Kong Super Series and the final four of the BWF World Masters Final.
Pullela Gopichand has been credited with overseeing the development of some of the best badminton players India has produced over the last decade. These include Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Parupalli Kashyap, Srikanth Kidambi, Arundhati Pantawane, Gurusai Datt and Arun Vishnu. The awards will be announced on Republic Day, 26th January.
Here’s the entire list:
The awardees of the Padma Vibushan, second highest civilian award are:
- Maratha strongman and NCP leader Sharad Pawar
- 83-year-old BJP veteran and former Union Minister Murli Manohar Joshi. He is a member of BJP’s ‘Margdarshak Mandal’, an advisory panel of the ruling party comprising of senior leaders.
- Late Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed
- Late former Lok Sabha Speaker PA Sangma
- Late Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Sunder Lal Patwah
- Legendary singer KJ Yesudas
- Vishwa Mohan Bhat
The awardees of the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, are:
- Mohanveena maestro Vishwa Mohan Bhat
- Shri Ratna Sundar Maharaj, for Spiritualism.
- Tehemton Udwadia
- Swami Niranjana Nanda Saraswati
- Late Shri Cho Ramaswamy (Posthumous)
- H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn
The awardees of the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award are:
- Olympian Sakshi Malik, the first Indian woman to win a medal in Olympics in Wrestling.
- Playback singer Kailash Kher
- Fork artist Basanti Visht
- Kathakali dancer CK Nair
- Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli
Gymnast Dipa Karmarkar
- Discus thrower and Shot putter Vikas Gowda
- Punam Suri
- Basanti Visht
- Chemanchari K. Nair
- Sadhu Meher
- K. Murthy
- Emrat Khan
- Birender Kumar Singh
- Baoa Devi
- Tilak Gitai
- Kailash Kher
- Mukund Naik
- Sukri Bommagowda
- Anuradha Podwal
- Wareppa Naba Nil
- K. Vishwanathanan
- Kanwal Sibal
- Venkata Subbaiah
- Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri
- Birkha Bahadur Limboo Muringla
- Eli Ahmed
- Bhavna Somaya
- Kashinath Pandit
- Harkishan Singh
- Dr Mukut Minz
- Sanjeev Kapoor
- Ashok Kumar Bhattacharya
- R. Shah
- Anuradha Koirala
- Dr Mapuskar
- Karimul Haque
- Sakshi Malik
- Vikas Gowda
- Srijesh
- Thanghavelu