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In the Government of India sports awards for 2001, rising chess star
Grandmaster Pendyala Harikrishna of Andhra Pradesh led the rostrum
with Rs 3,90,000, while World Junior Chess Champion Koneru Humpy
received Rs 3,00,000. Both the Andhra juniors had a great run last
year, when Harikrishna became India's youngest Grandmaster with
stellar performances in Chess Olympiad Istanbul and Wijk Aan Zee
"B" events, while Koneru Humpy cornered the glory winning
the World Junior title at Athens. Among the awards for Coaches the
chess men were Humpy's father Koneru Ashok (Rs. 1,90,000) and Pravin
Thipsay (Rs. 1,00,000). In a short speech before giving away the
awards, the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Ms. Uma Bharti
said there would be a two to three-fold increase in the amount of
money given in the various categories for the next year.
Making this
announcement before presenting the awards for the year 2001, the
Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Ms. Uma Bharti, exhorted the
galaxy of sportspersons and coaches to strive even harder to bring
glory to the nation. "Some of you will be taking part in
Commonwealth Games and Asian Games this year. I appeal to all of you
give it everything you have. I assure you bigger incentives from
next year,'' stated the Minister, whose abilities to charm any
gathering were in no way hampered by the ankle-ligament rupture she
was suffering from. Ms. Bharti later presented awards to those
present from the list of 153 sportspersons and 58 coaches, at Vigyan
Bhawan, New Delhi. This year a total sum of Rupees 1,99,00,000 were
disbursed.
Woman boxer C
Merykom Hmangte received the maximum of Rs. 9,00,000 for winning the
light-fly silver medal in the World Championship in December last.
Women boxing Coach Anup Kumar walked away with the single-biggest
cheque of Rs. 10,00,000. Though some of the well-known faces,
from boxing to sailing, were present at the ceremony, only 131 of
the 153 awardees showed up at the hall.
List of Awardees
|
P Harikrishna (Rs. 390000) |
K. Humpy (Rs. 3,00,000) |
D. Minu (posthumously) (Rs.
25,000) |
|
Dhyani B. Dave (Rs. 20,000) |
Abhijeet Gupta (Rs. 20,000) |
G. Rohit (Rs. 15,000) |
|
Saheli Nath (Rs. 25,000) |
D. Harika (Rs. 60,000) |
Rajadarshini (Rs. 15,000) |
|
Deepan Chakkravarthy (Rs.
15,000) |
Kruttika Nadig (Rs. 20,000) |
M. Priyadarshini (Rs. 15,000) |
|
K. Ratnakaran (Rs. 30,000) |
M. Kasturi (Rs. 50,000) |
S. Meenakshi (Rs. 90,000) |
|
Y. Sandeep (Rs. 25,000) |
S. Vijayalakshmi (Rs.
1,00,000) |
Nisha Mohota (Rs. 75,000) |
|
Tania Sachdev (Rs. 70,000) |
Bhagyashree Thipsay (Rs.
1,00,000) |
Saheli Dhar-Barua (Rs.
75,000) |
|
S. Kidambi (Rs. 50,000) |
Sriram Jha (Rs. 50,000) |
Surya Sekhar Ganguly (Rs.
75,000) |
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