Arjuna, Khel Ratna and Dronacharya Awards: Key Facts

The correct answer is D, Subramanian Raman. He received the Dronacharya Award of 2021 in the Regular category for table tennis, the award given to coaches whose trainees reach the podium at the Olympic, Asian, Commonwealth or World Championship level. Options A and B, Manika Batra and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, are players and not coaches, and they are put here because both are India’s leading table tennis names of the same years; Manika Batra won the Commonwealth Games singles gold in 2018. Option C, Mouma Das, is also a player, a long-serving international who received the Arjuna Award. The distinction the question rests on is therefore the class of award: the Dronacharya is for coaches, the Arjuna and the Khel Ratna for players, so a player’s name can never answer a Dronacharya question.

The correct answer is B, Viswanathan Anand. The award was instituted in 1991–92 and the chess grandmaster received it in that very first year, which is the fact papers return to most often. Option D, Karnam Malleswari, the weightlifter, holds a related first: she was the first woman to receive the Khel Ratna, in 1994–95, and candidates who remember one first and not the other are caught here. Option A, Leander Paes, the tennis player, received the award in 1996–97, the year after his Olympic bronze at Atlanta. Option C, Sachin Tendulkar, received it in 1997–98. All four are genuine recipients, so the question is settled by the order of the years rather than by the fame of the names, and the order to hold is Anand, Malleswari, Paes, Tendulkar.

The correct answer is A, 1961. The Arjuna Award is the oldest of the national sports awards and honours a sportsperson for consistently outstanding performance over the four years before the award; the recipient is given a bronze statuette of Arjuna, a scroll of honour and a cash prize. Option B, 1985, is the year the Dronacharya Award for coaches began. Option C, 1991, points to the Khel Ratna, instituted in 1991–92 and now named after Major Dhyan Chand. Option D, 2002, is the year of the Dhyan Chand Award for lifetime achievement in sport. The four years therefore belong to four different awards, and a candidate who learns them as one sequence — 1961, 1985, 1991–92, 2002 — can answer any question in this family. One more detail is asked beside the year: the number of Arjuna Awards given in a year is limited, and the statuette is of Arjuna, the archer of the Mahabharata, which is the clue in the name itself.

The correct answer is C, coaches who have trained medal winners. Instituted in 1985, the Dronacharya Award honours coaches whose trainees have won medals at the Olympic, Asian or Commonwealth Games or at a World Championship, and it is given in two categories, Regular and Lifetime. Option A describes the Dhyan Chand Award, instituted in 2002 for lifetime achievement, which recognises a player’s contribution including the work done after retirement. Option B describes the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, from 1956–57, the only one of these honours that goes to an institution of learning. Option D describes the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar of 2009, which is given to companies, sports control boards and voluntary bodies. The name itself is the clue, since Dronacharya was the teacher of archery in the Mahabharata.

The correct answer is D, 1985. The Dronacharya Award began in 1985, twenty-four years after the Arjuna Award, and it was the first national honour meant for coaches rather than players; the Lifetime category was added later so that a long career of coaching could be recognised separately from recent work. Option A, 1961, is the year of the Arjuna Award. Option B, 1975, and option C, 1981, are years in which no national sports award was instituted and are offered only to crowd the option list with plausible dates. Note the shape of the calendar as a whole: 1956–57 for the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, 1961 for the Arjuna, 1985 for the Dronacharya, 1991–92 for the Khel Ratna, 1994 for the Tenzing Norgay Award, 2002 for the Dhyan Chand and 2009 for the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar.

The correct answer is B, Major Dhyan Chand. In August 2021 the Government renamed the country’s highest sporting honour the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, after the hockey player whose teams won Olympic gold at Amsterdam in 1928, Los Angeles in 1932 and Berlin in 1936. Only the name changed; the criteria, the selection committee and the procedure stayed as they were. Option A, Milkha Singh, the sprinter who came fourth in the 400 metres at Rome in 1960, has no national award named after him. Option C, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, gives his name to the Statue of Unity and to the sports complex named for him, not to this award. Option D, Balbir Singh Sr., was a great hockey centre forward and a triple Olympic gold medallist, but the award does not carry his name.

The correct answer is A, Major Dhyan Chand. He was born on 29 August 1905, and India has observed National Sports Day on that date since 2012; the national sports awards are tied to the day and are conferred by the President at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Dhyan Chand received the Padma Bhushan in 1956, and both the Khel Ratna and the Dhyan Chand Award for lifetime achievement now carry his name. Option B, Milkha Singh, the sprinter known as the Flying Sikh, was born in a different month and has no national day. Option C, Balbir Singh Sr., won Olympic hockey gold three times but does not give his name to the day. Option D, K. D. Jadhav, was India’s first individual Olympic medallist after independence, taking a wrestling bronze at Helsinki in 1952.

The correct answer is C, the Dhyan Chand Award. Instituted in 2002, it honours sportspersons for the whole of their contribution to their sport, including what they have done for it after their playing days ended, which sets it apart from the awards given for recent performance. Option A, the Arjuna Award of 1961, is given for consistently outstanding play over the four preceding years, not for a lifetime. Option B, the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar of 2009, goes to companies, sports control boards and voluntary organisations rather than to individuals. Option D, the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy of 1956–57, goes to a university. A candidate should read the words lifetime and individual together in such a question, because they point to the Dhyan Chand Award every time.

The correct answer is D, the university with the best overall performance in inter-university tournaments. Instituted in 1956–57 and named after independent India’s first education minister, it is the oldest of the national sports honours and the only one given to a university, which makes it a favourite question. Option A, the best coach, is the Dronacharya Award of 1985. Option B is wrong because no national sports award is given to a state for the National Games, although states are ranked in the medal table. Option C describes the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar of 2009, which honours companies and voluntary bodies that support sport. Remember the recipient of each honour as a class — player, coach, organisation, university — and this group of questions is settled before the options are read.

The correct answer is A, Karnam Malleswari. The weightlifter received the Khel Ratna in 1994–95, becoming the first woman to be honoured with it, and she went on to win the bronze at the Sydney Olympics of 2000, India’s first Olympic medal by a woman. Option B, P. T. Usha, is the sprinter who narrowly missed a medal at the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984 and received the Arjuna Award and the Padma Shri, but not the Khel Ratna. Option C, Kunjarani Devi, another weightlifter of great record, received the Khel Ratna later, in 1995–96. Option D, Mary Kom, the boxer, received it in 2009. The order of these names is what the question tests, so hold Malleswari as the first, in the fourth year of the award.

The correct answer is C, corporate entities, sports control boards and voluntary bodies that promote sport. Instituted in 2009, it recognises the organisations that build sport rather than the people who play it, under heads such as identifying and nurturing young talent, providing employment to sportspersons and developing sports infrastructure. Option A is wrong because individual performance is honoured by the Arjuna Award and the Khel Ratna. Option B is wrong because coaches, in both the Regular and the Lifetime categories, receive the Dronacharya Award of 1985. Option D is wrong because the honour for a university is the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy of 1956–57. The word Protsahan, meaning encouragement, is the clue, since the award is for those who encourage sport from outside the field of play.

The correct answer is B, the President of India. The awards are conferred at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan, and the recipient receives the medal or statuette, a certificate or scroll of honour and a cash prize from the President. Option C, the Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, heads the ministry that administers the schemes, invites the applications and announces the names, but does not confer the awards. Option A, the Prime Minister, has no role in conferring them, although the Government of the day announces changes such as the renaming of the Khel Ratna in 2021. Option D, the President of the Indian Olympic Association, heads the body that sends Indian teams to the Olympic and Asian Games and is not part of this process. Selection itself rests with a committee chaired by a retired judge.