Ministry nominates Saweety Bora and Sajan Prakash for Arjuna award

NEW DELHI: It wasn’t just double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker or reigning world chess champion D Gukesh whose names were added to the list of Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna awardees after the sports ministry took suo moto cognisance of their achievements.
TOI has learnt that two other names – world boxing champion in lightweight category Saweety Boora and double Olympian and ace swimmer Sajan Prakash – who didn’t find mention in the original list of nominated athletes by the 12-member awards selection committee but were later chosen for the Arjuna award. The ministry added their names following grievances expressed by both sportspersons.
While the ministry added Manu’s name after facing backlash over her exclusion from the list of Khel Ratna list despite winning two medals at the Paris Games, and that of 18-year-old Gukesh for his superlative show at the FIDE World Championship in Singapore, the list of Arjuna winners also saw the addition of Saweety and Prakash after sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya took cognisance of their names.
It’s been learnt that both the athletes were unhappy that their names had not being recommended for Arjuna. While Saweety was crowned the world champion at home in March 2023, Prakash had long been applying for Arjuna without much success despite being the first-ever Indian swimmer to qualify for the Olympics by breaching the ‘A’ standard time.
MOC meeting focuses on need for home-grown coaches Sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday chaired the 152nd meeting of the Mission Olympic Cell (MOC) here with the focus on preparing for the Los Angeles Olympics 2028 and the need to produce more home-grown coaches to reduce over-dependence on foreign experts.
During the meeting, it was observed that there’s an immediate need to restructure the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) so that it can effectively contribute to India’s medal tally at the Olympics/Paralympics and other multisport events. It was decided to formulate a robust talent identification criteria of Development Group for Brisbane Olympics 2032 and marking short/medium/long term targets for athletes included in TOPS to monitor their actual performance.