National Sports Awards 2025: Tejaswin Shankar, Diyva Deshmukh among Arjuna nominations; no Khel Ratna for third time

The Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports announced the National Awards 2025 with as many as 17 nominations for the Arjuna Awards. Surprisingly, there has been no recommendation for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award, thus making it only the third time of such an instance. The National Sports Awards are given every year to recognise and reward excellence in sports.

Based on the recommendations of the Selection Committee chaired by a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, Justice (Retd.) Arun Kumar Mishra, the Government has decided to confer awards on the following sportspersons, coaches and entities under various categories, as per a press release from the ministry.

Prior to this edition, no athletes were chosen for the Khel Ratna in 2008 and 2014, since the award was instituted in 1991-92. The Khel Ratna award is India’s highest sporting honour. Shooter Manu Bhaker, chess grandmaster D Gukesh, hockey player Harmanpreet Singh, and athlete Praveen Kumar were the recipients of the Khel Ratna last time.

Tejaswin, Divya on Arjuna awardee list

Athlete Tejaswin Shankar, who won a bronze medal at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow earlier this month, is among the Arjuna award nominations, along with chess stars Vidit Gujarathi, Divya Deshmukh and badminton duo of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly.

The 'Arjuna Award for outstanding performance in Sports and Games' is given for good performance over a period of the previous four years and for showing qualities of leadership, sportsmanship and a sense of discipline.

Besides Shankar, Gujarathi, Deshmukh, Gopichand and Jolly, the others nominated for the Arjuna award are Muhammad Variyathodi (athletics), Priyanka Goswami (athletics), Narender (boxing), Dhanush Srikanth (deaf shooting), Lalremsiami (hockey), Rajkumar Pal (hockey), Surjeet (kabaddi), Pooja (kabaddi), Rudransh Khandelwal (para-shooting), Ekta Bhyan (para-shooting), Arvind Singh (rowing) and Akhil Sheoran (shooting).

Former Indian footballer and coach Arumainayagam (Football) will be receiving the Arjuna Award (Lifetime) for outstanding performance in Sports and Games 2025.

Among the Dronacharya awardees, Parveer Singh (athletics), Chhote Lal Yadav (boxing) and Neha Nandkumar Chavan (shooting) will be among the recipients in the regular category, while Dharmendra Singh Yadav (boxing) and Virender Kumar (wrestling) will receive the lifetime honours.

Complete list of National Sports Awards 2025

The 'Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar' will be given to Army Paralympic Node, Pune for playing a visible role in the area of sports promotion and development.