First time in history, Sports Ministry recommends all women athletes for Padma awards

For the first time in the history of Indian sports, the sports ministry has recommended all women (nine) athletes for the prestigious Padma awards.

According to a Times of India report, six-time world champion pugilist M C Mary Kom has been recommended for the Pama Vibhushan award, India's second-highest civilian honour after Bharat Ratna. This is also for the first time a female athlete gets a recommendation for the prestigious awards. Mary was honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 2013 and Padma Shri in 2006.

Out of the nine athletes, India's new and first-ever badminton World Champion P V Sindhu, has received the ministry’s nomination for the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest civilian award. Earlier, Sindhu was recommended for the award in 2017, but failed to make the final list of awardees. She had got the Padma Shri in 2015.

Sportspersons who have won the Padma Vibhushan award in the past are chess legend Viswanathan Anand (2007), cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar (2008) and mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary (2008), who got the award posthumously.

Besides Mary Kom and Sindhu, the other seven women in this year's list – all recommended for Padma Shri – are wrestler Vinesh Phogat, table tennis star Manika Batra, India's T20I skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, hockey captain Rani Rampal, former shooter Suma Shirur and mountaineer twin sisters, Tashi and Nungshi Malik.

The recommendations have been sent to the Padma awards committee in the ministry of home affairs (MHA). It will announce the names of the selected awardees on the eve of the Republic Day celebrations – January 25, 2020.

Thirty-six-year-old Mary Kom, 36, is aiming to qualify for her second Olympics – the 2020 Tokyo Games – after securing a historic bronze at the 2012 London Olympics. In December last year, the Manipuri boxer had clinched the world title in 48kg category at home for the record sixth time. While Rio Olympics silver medallist Sindhu recently became the first Indian to win a World Championship title, defeating Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara 21-7 21-7 in Basel, Switzerland.