Tamilnadu CM honours Paralympics medalist Mariappan Thangavelu

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday honoured sportsmen from the state who represented India in various international events and brought laurels to the country, with cash awards.

The Chief Minister handed over a cheque for Rs 2 crore to Mariappan Thangavelu, who won a silver medal in the recently held Paralympics in Tokyo, in the T-63 high jump event and the remaining cash prize to chess players who won medals in various international events, an official press release said.

He handed over cheques for Rs 20 lakh each to four chess players-- former world champion Vishwanathan Anand, V R Aravind Chidambaram, R Praggnanandhaa and R Vaishali for representing India and winning gold medal in the FIDE online Olympiad in 2020. Their coach N Srinath was given Rs 12 lakh.

Also, Anand, B Adhiban, Praggnanandhaa, Vaishali and Savitha Shri were presented cheques for Rs 10 lakh each for winning bronze medal in the FIDE online Olympiad 2021 recently. Coach of the men's team N Srinath was given Rs 4.5 lakh and coach of the women's team M Shyam Sundar was given Rs 3 lakh.

Stalin handed over cheques for Rs 5 lakh each to P Iniyan for becoming a Grandmaster in 2019 and to Srija Seshadri, V Varshini and P V Nandhitha for becoming women grandmasters. The CM also handed over the cheques for Rs 3 lakh each for V S Rathinavel and M Pranesh for becoming International masters in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

Later, Anand thanked the chief minister for the gesture and said in a tweet: "A proud moment for Tamil Nadu Chess. Thank you sir @CMOTamilnadu @mkstalin". PTI SS ROH ROH