November 14: President Droupadi Murmu presented the Arjuna Awards 2025 to 18 sportspersons, including chess players Vidit Gujarathi and Divya Deshmukh, hockey’s Lalremsiami and badminton player Treesa Jolly, at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Friday. She also presented the Dronacharya Awards for coaches, the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awards 2024 and the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar.
Key highlights
- Arjuna Awards 2025: 18 awardees across 12 disciplines, including one lifetime award.
- Dronacharya Awards 2025: 5 coaches, three in the regular category and two for lifetime achievement.
- Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awards 2024: 4 awardees, including a lifetime achievement award.
- Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar 2025: Army Paralympic Node, Pune.
- Para sport: three Arjuna awardees come from para and deaf sport.
Arjuna Awards 2025
| Sport | Awardee(s) |
|---|---|
| Athletics | Tejaswin Shankar, Muhammed Ajmal V., Priyanka Goswami |
| Badminton | Treesa Jolly, Pullela Gayatri Gopichand |
| Boxing | Narender |
| Chess | Vidit Santosh Gujarathi, Divya Jitendra Deshmukh |
| Hockey | Lalremsiami, Rajkumar Pal |
| Kabaddi | Surjeet, Pooja |
| Shooting | Akhil Sheoran |
| Para shooting | Rudransh Khandelwal |
| Para athletics | Ekta Bhyan |
| Deaf shooting | Dhanush Srikanth |
| Rowing | Arvind Singh |
| Football (lifetime) | Isaiah Arumainayagam |
Dronacharya Awards 2025 (coaches)
| Coach | Sport | Category |
|---|---|---|
| Parveer Singh | Athletics | Regular |
| Chhote Lal Yadav | Boxing | Regular |
| Neha Nandkumar Chavan | Shooting | Regular |
| Virender Kumar | Wrestling | Lifetime |
| Dharmendra Singh Yadav | Boxing | Lifetime |
Adventure awards and the sports-promotion prize
The Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awards 2024 went to Skalzang Rigzin and Baljeet Kaur for land adventure and Rimo Saha for water adventure, with a lifetime achievement award for Shiv Prasad Chamoli. The Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar 2025, which recognises organisations that promote sport, went to the Army Paralympic Node in Pune.
Our calculation
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total individual awardees across all four awards | 27 (plus one organisation) |
| Arjuna awardees from athletics, the largest group | 3 of 18 |
| Arjuna awardees from para and deaf sport | 3 of 18 |
| Boxing coaches honoured | 2 of 5 Dronacharya awardees |
What it means for India and Asia
The list reflects where India has been winning. Chess, where Indian players are now among the strongest in the world, has two awardees. Hockey and kabaddi, two team sports in which India competes for medals at the Asian Games, have two each. Three awards for para and deaf athletes, and the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar for a para-sport centre, underline the growth of disability sport in India.
What to watch
- How this year’s awardees perform in the build-up to the next Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.
- The announcement of the next cycle of National Sports Awards by the Sports Ministry.
President Droupadi Murmu presenting an Arjuna Award at Rashtrapati Bhavan (file photo from an earlier ceremony). Image: President’s Secretariat, GODL-India, via Wikimedia Commons. Photo source · Licence
Sources
- PIB (President’s Secretariat): President of India presents Sports and Adventure Awards 2025
- PIB: List of awardees, Sports and Adventure Awards (PDF)
The Sports Desk covers cricket, the Asian Games and Indian and international sport. Stories are checked against at least two credible sources before publication.
