National Sports Awards to be held virtually on August 29

The National Sports Awards ceremony will take place virtually on August 29 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

National Sports Awards which include the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, the Arjuna award, the Dronacharya award, and the Dhyan Chand award, are conferred on athletes every year by the President of India at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on August 29, the National Sports Day.

However, this year, the names would be announced by President Ram Nath Kovind virtually.

"The ceremony will take place virtually but what we will have to see how the exact process would pan out," a source within the Sports Ministry told .

When asked further about the details, the source said, "We will see that only names will be announced or players will appear on virtual screen. That is yet to be decided. Hopefully, everything will be decided in a couple of days."

Earlier, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports had constituted a Selection Committee for selecting awardees for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Dronacharya Awards, Arjuna Awards, Dhyan Chand Awards, Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar Award and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (MAKA) Trophy for the year 2020.

Retired Justice of Supreme Court Justice Mukundakam Sharma was selected as the Chairperson of the Committee.

"The Members include eminent names from the field of Indian Sports including Virender Sehwag (Cricket), Sardar Singh (Hockey), Monalisa Baruah Mehta (Table Tennis), Deepa Malik (Para-athletics), Venkatesan Devarajan (Boxing) as well as well-known media persons including Sports Commentator Msh Batavia and Sports Journalists Alok Sinha and Neeru Bhatia," the Sports Ministry's release had read.

Officials from the Sports Ministry in the committee included Director General, SAI, Sandip Pradhan, LS Singh, Joint Secretary (Sports Development), and Commander Rajesh Rajagopalan, CEO Target Olympic Podium Scheme.

( With inputs from ANI )