National Sports Awards

Sport in India

India has a history of sports dating back to the Vedic period, with Western sports having been imported during British rule.^[4] Cricket is currently the most popular spectator sport; it generates the highest television viewership, with the Indian Premier League being the most-followed sports league in the country. Football has also gained popularity,^[5][a] with the Indian Super League being the highest level of domestic football, and the national team winning multiple gold medals at the Asian and South Asian Games.

Additional football accomplishments include India having reached the group stage of the 1960 Olympics, qualified for the 1950 FIFA World Cup, and won the SAFF Championship.^{[7][8][9][10]} India has also had success in field hockey, winning the World Cup and multiple medals in the Olympic Games. Other popular sports include kabaddi, badminton, tennis, athletics and kho-kho. Sports such as golf, rugby, wrestling, boxing, motorsport, and basketball are also featured throughout the country.^[11]

India's diverse culture and people have influenced the wide variety of sports, with indigenous sports such as fighter kite and boat racing being popular in some regions. Other indigenous sports include chess, kho kho, polo and snooker, subject to location. Water sports, like scuba diving, boating, surfing, and kiteboarding, frequently appear in coastal areas.^[12] Professional wrestling and mixed martial arts (MMA) are popular among young audiences,^[13] with some Indian wrestlers achieving international success.^[14][15] India has hosted the Cricket World Cup three times and won it twice.^[b] Field hockey is India's most successful sport at the Olympics, with the Indian men's team winning thirteen Olympic medals—eight of which were gold. Although it is not considered a professional sport, cycling is a recreational activity and exercise in India.^[18]

Domestic professional commercial sports leagues in the country including Indian Premier League (Cricket) Women's Premier League (Cricket), Indian Super League (Football), I-League (Football), Indian Women's League (Football), Pro Kabbadi (Kabbadi), Hockey India League (Hockey), Premier Badminton League (Badminton), Ultimate Table Tennis League (Table Tennis), Premier Handball League (Handball), Prime Volleyball League (Volleyball) and Ultimate Kho Kho (Kho–Kho). The major international sporting events that are annually organised in India include the Indian Open (Golf), India Open (Badminton), and India Open (Table Tennis). Kabaddi, an indigenous sport, is widely regarded as one of the fastest growing sports in India, following the launch of the Indian domestic Pro Kabaddi League. The sport has garnered substantial television viewership, contributing to its popularity and elevating its monetary value.^[19] Women's sports have also grown in India, with professional leagues including the Women's Premier League and Women's Kabaddi League.^[20]

India has hosted several international sporting events, including editions of the Asian Games, South Asian Games; the 2010 Commonwealth Games; and six Men's and four Women's cricket world championships. India has hosted four editions of the SAFF Championship; SAFF Women's Championship in 2016, and one junior FIFA world for each gender in football. India will host the 2025 Women's World Cup,^[21][c] the 2026 T20 and the 2031 ODI Cricket World Cup.,,,,,for further reading of article from Wiki

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National sports awards

• Khel Ratna award
• Arjuna Award
• Dronacharya award
• Major Dhyan Chand Award
• Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy
• Rahstriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar
• Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award

 The National Sports Honors, which are a collection of six separate honors awarded to athletes, coaches, or groups for their accomplishments and contributions to the development of Indian sports, are regarded as the highest athletic accolades in India.

The Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, also known as the Khel Ratna, the Arjuna Award, the Dronacharya Award, the Major Dhyan Chand Award, the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, also known as the MAKA Trophy, and the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar are the six main awards that make up India’s National Sports Awards.

The Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award has been a part of the list informally since 2004 when it was included in the six National Sports Awards.

The list of awards and what they are awarded for are listed below:

• Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award: Awarded for outstanding performances in sports spanning over four years.
• Arjuna Award: Given out for consistently good performance over four years.
• Dronacharya Award: It is awarded to coaches for producing medal winners at prestigious international events.
• Major Dhyan Chand Award: Presented for good performance and contributing towards the promotion of sports.
• Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy: Given to the university for top performance in inter-university tournaments over the last year.
• Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar: Awarded to organizations and individuals for playing a role in the area of sports promotion and development over the last three years.
• Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award: To recognize outstanding achievements in the field of adventure activities or sports on land, sea, and air.

National sports awards: In Detail

The detailed description of the awards is as follows.

Khel Ratna award

The Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award replaced the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, which was created in 1991-1992, as India’s top athletic prize.

• Winners of the Khel Ratna get a medallion, a diploma, and a monetary award for their great sporting exploits during four years.
• Viswanathan Anand, a grandmaster of chess from India, received the award for the first time.
• MC Mary Kom, PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Vijender Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, and Virat Kohli are just a few of the many other champions.
• The youngest athlete to receive the Khel Ratna award is pistol shooter Abhinav Bindra, who captured the first individual gold medal for India ever in the Olympics in Beijing in 2008.
• Olympic bronze medal-winning weightlifter Karnam Malleswari was the first Indian woman to receive the Khel Ratna in 1994-95.

Arjuna Award

The Arjuna Award was established in 1961 and is named after Arjuna, the major character of the historic Indian epic Mahabharata.

Before the Khel Ratna was created, it was India’s highest athletic distinction.

• The Arjuna Award, given out for consistently excellent performance over four years, comes with a statuette of Arjuna, a diploma, and a monetary award.
• PK Banerjee, an Olympian for India in football, was one of the 20 recipients of the Arjuna Award in its first year, 1961.
• The first woman to get the Arjuna Award was the hockey player Anna Lumsden.

A Khel Ratna recipient is not eligible to be nominated for the Arjuna Award under the existing regulations. The Khel Ratna can, however, be nominated for an Arjuna winner.

Dronacharya award

The greatest accolade for coaches in sports in India is the Dronacharya Award, which was established in 1985. It is given to people who have produced medalists at important international competitions.

It’s based on the Mahabharata, where Arjuna’s mentor or coach was Dronacharya.

• A bronze statue of Dronacharya, a certificate, and cash are given to the winners.
• Among the first Dronacharya Award recipients were the wrestling coach Bhalchandra Bhaskar Bhagwat, the boxing coach Om Prakash Bharadwaj, and the famed athletics coach OM Nambiar, who is credited with shaping the career of Indian sprint queen PT Usha.
• Renu Kohli, an athletics coach, became the first woman to receive the Dronacharya Award in 2002.
• The Dronacharya Award is granted for contributions made during a lifetime as well as more recent achievements.

Major Dhyan Chand Award

The Major Dhyan Chand Award, which is also named after India’s hockey wizard Dhyan Chand, is the country’s highest prize for career accomplishments in sports.

• Since 2002, the winners have received a Dhyan Chand statuette, a certificate, and financial rewards for their outstanding performance and individual contributions to the development of sports.
• The inaugural winners of the Major Dhyan Chand Award were the Olympian boxer Shahuraj Birajdar, a member of the Indian men’s hockey team Ashok Diwan, and the distinguished player and coach Aparna Ghosh of the Indian women’s basketball team.

Also read: Gallantry Awards

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy

The Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, often known as the MAKA Trophy, was established in 1956-1957 and is the oldest National Sports Award in India.

• The Abul Kalam Azad Award, which honors an Indian independence fighter and the nation’s first minister of education, is granted to a university for excelling in inter-university competitions throughout the previous calendar year.
• Bombay University won the first prize, but since then, Amritsar, Punjab’s Guru Nanak Dev University has dominated the winners’ list, taking home 22 of the 64 prizes given out.
• The prize includes a revolving MAKA Trophy that is awarded annually to the winner as well as cash.

Rahstriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar

The Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar, given to organizations or corporations (both private and public) and people for their contributions to the growth and promotion of sports during the previous three years, has been a constant on the list of National Sports Awards since 2009.

• The award is known as the National Sports Promotion Award in English from Hindi.
• The selection of nominees is divided into four categories: sports for development, corporate social responsibility initiatives to promote sports, hiring of athletes, and identifying and developing new talent.
• Each category’s winners receive a trophy and a citation. A single category may have more than one winner in a given year.

Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award

The first two people to climb Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world, were the Indian mountaineer Tenzing Norgay of Nepali descent and the New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary.

• The Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, which was created in 1994 to honor Norgay, aims to acknowledge exceptional accomplishments in the world of adventure sports on land, water, and the air.
• Mountaineering, skydiving, open-water swimming, and sailing are among the activities taken into consideration.
• Tenzing Norgay National Adventure honors, which are presented alongside the six main national honors since 2004, are the equivalent of the Arjuna Award in the adventure sports world.
• Achievements in adventure sports were also recognized with the Arjuna Award before the award’s establishment.
• Each year, the prize is often split into four categories: land adventure, water (sea) adventure, air adventure, and lifetime achievement.

SOURCE: National Sports Awards of India - ClearIAS

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http://employmentnews.gov.in/careear-in-sports.asp

CAREER GUIDE

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CAREER IN SPORTS By

V. KUMAR  Sport in India has really come a long way from being a voluntary pastime to a rewarding career that it is today. Sports come naturally to some people, but to most others it could still be developed at least to a reasonable level with proper techniques and training. In the evolution of man from hunters to the modern day, activities such as running, throwing or even warding off physical dangers have come to reflect today in the sports that we play. Sport is an exciting and healthy pastime to many, but if sport is really ones passion it can be a very rewarding and satisfying career too. If one has to look at the growth and development of sport in India, 1982 was a water shed year. The Asian Games hosted at Delhi provided new infrastructure like modern stadia and holistic and fulsome training and coaching structure with the onset of Sports Authority of India. Media covered the Games in a big way and television beamed matches live to homes. All these aspects were replicated at a much higher scale and magnitude during the Common Wealth Games in 2010 providing spurt to sport on the whole in the country. India: Emerging Sports Destination In between India has hosted numerous other big ticket sporting events like the two cricket world cups (1996 and 2011), formula one race, yearly ATP event the Chennai Open Tennis etc. Besides top football clubs like Bayern Munich have come to India along with the Argentina football team. This is also happening partly because India is seen as a major emerging sport destination having untapped potential both in terms of player talents and a huge market. Then there are successful players like Sachin Tendulkar, Abhinav Bindra, RVS Rathore,Sushil Kumar, Viswanathan Anand, Mary Kom and many others who have raised the profile of sports people in India and have attracted youth to take up their respective games as a full time passion. All this has resulted in a huge demand for people in sport. The growth is happening two fold. At one level, government through the National Sports Policy is investing heavily in sports and also by organising top events the facilities are getting better every day. Secondly, growth has also accelerated because of the private sector realising sport as an important part of not only their corporate social responsibility (CSR) but also a valid investment for their own promotion. Private sports regulatory bodies like the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) with the successful organisation of the Indian Premier league have showed the way for other sport federations too to look for corporate sponsored events. To be a sportsperson: How to approach It is always good to identify career in sports as young as one can. This is more crucial if one is aspiring to be a sportsperson. One of the better options to look for training is the various facilities of the Sports Authority of India. More about SAI is discussed later in the article. Usually the entry is at the 12th level. One can begin career at the amateur level and start participating in the State level, regional level and finally graduate to the National level. While SAI is at the National level, it has various State level branches that cater to the regional sport talents. Other than this there are various State level organisations that look after nurturing sporting talents. In most cases, the government bears the cost of training and in bringing in top level coaches. For example, the SAI centre in Patiala has four core disciplines like boxing and often coaches from Cuba and other countries are hired to provide best training. Obviously, government bears the cost for these coaches and other training facilities. Most of the SAI programmes also have scholarships and student supports and students can also look for financial assistance. Age group competitions are a good starting point for a beginner sportsperson. As said above, being a sportsperson is not the only option available. One can train to be a coach, physiotherapist, sports medicine practitioner, physical trainers, sports journalist, public relations practitioner, sports manager, administrator, sports event managers and so on. Who is eligible to be a sportsperson? :- Physical and Mental Traits required If spotted and trained early, almost everyone among us has the talent to excel in some sport at a reasonable level. But to some people sport come naturally and it becomes their passion as well. If one is passionate about sport that is the first starting point. Sport is career that requires lifetime of dedication and there is no point entering the field half-heartedly. Most of the games require strong physical attributes. This doesn’t mean that one has to be born with it, the whole purpose of training and coaching is to attune the body to its optimum level and imbibe the excellence in skills for top results. One definitely has to be physically strong, agile and flexible among other qualities and for that the very basic eligibility is the ability to work hard on fitness. Strong work ethics and perseverance are the key qualities that will take a person far ahead in his or her sporting career. But sport is not physical only, coaches around the world will tell that games are played between the years, that is, they are high on mental quotient as well. One has to be tough mentally, show a lot of patience at the sport, have a right mix of aggression and cool mindedness and be intelligent enough to grab the little chances that come their way and use it to come out the winner. That’s what separates a champion from the also-rans, the margin is thin. Sport is a great teacher in life and the biggest characteristic coaches want their wards to imbibe is the ‘spirit of the game’or the sporting spirit. It is not something tangible, but it comes out from respect for the opponents and spirit of fair play. Sport also builds team spirit and bonding and leadership qualities as well. These are few of the physical and mental aspects that a sportsperson seeks to learn, build and improve throughout their careers. Professional prospects There are various exciting careers available for people pursuing sport and it is not limited to playing the game actively as the only professional prospect available to them. Other than being a player, one can be coach, trainer, journalist, medicine practitioner, etc. Some of the most popular professional and job prospects are enlisted below. Sportsperson If one excels in a particular sport and has the right work ethics, few other professions can be as satisfying as that of a sportsperson. Just like Elena Isinbayeva, the famous polevaulter, one has to keep raising the bar and if successful, the joy and pride that comes through by it can be hardly found anywhere else. Every game has its National team, and that is where a young athlete / sportsperson should aim to find a place in. Once a career as a sportsperson is identified, one has to gradually move up the ladder with intensive training and hard work. Playing right at the top, at the international level is immensely rewarding. One is usually paid well to lead a good life. Besides, there are sponsorships and jobs, both government and private reserved for sportsperson of high calibre. The range of monetary benefits vary a lot from sport to sport. Games like Cricket, Golf, Motor Sports, Tennis, international football, etc. are highly paid. While most of the other games may not get one millions but still something that is above average. Money however is never the first aim and is not the only reward for sportspersons. The pride, joy and self-fulfilment that come with bringing top honours for oneself and the country at large is irreplaceable. Also a lot of government jobs are assured for sportspersons at the national level. A sportspersons playing career doesn’t last lifetime. But once active playing is over, one can look for coaching, managing and other jobs. (The author is a sports journalist with reporting experience of well known sports events including Olympics and Cricket World Cup.                                                                                                                  e-mail: vidhanshu@ hotmail. com)