India’s highest sporting honour will have no new name in 2025. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports on Tuesday named 17 sportspersons for the Arjuna Award and left the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna empty for only the third time since the award began in 1991-92.
The decision, based on recommendations from a selection committee chaired by former Supreme Court judge Justice (Retd.) Arun Kumar Mishra, follows a 2024 cycle that produced four Khel Ratna winners. Tejaswin Shankar, Divya Deshmukh, Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly headline the Arjuna list that stretches across athletics, chess, badminton, hockey, shooting and para disciplines.
Seventeen athletes clear the Arjuna bar
The Arjuna Award recognises outstanding performance over the previous four years plus leadership, sportsmanship and discipline. The 17 recipients span Olympic, Commonwealth, Asian and world-level results plus para and deaf categories.
| Athlete | Sport |
|---|---|
| Tejaswin Shankar | Athletics |
| Muhammed Ajmal V | Athletics |
| Priyanka Goswami | Athletics |
| Treesa Jolly | Badminton |
| Gayatri Gopichand | Badminton |
| Narender | Boxing |
| Vidit Gujrathi | Chess |
| Divya Deshmukh | Chess |
| Dhanush Srikanth | Deaf shooting |
| Lalremsiami | Hockey |
| Rajkumar Pal | Hockey |
| Surjeet | Kabaddi |
| Pooja | Kabaddi |
| Rudransh Khandelwal | Para-shooting |
| Ekta Bhyan | Para-athletics |
| Arvind Singh | Rowing |
| Akhil Sheoran | Shooting |
Divya Deshmukh’s selection follows her FIDE Women’s World Cup title, the first by an Indian woman, which also made her a Grandmaster. Tejaswin Shankar earned notice for his Asian Games silver and later Asian Championship placing. Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly arrive as established doubles partners. Deaf shooter Dhanush Srikanth and the para pair of Rudransh Khandelwal and Ekta Bhyan underline the list’s reach.
Former footballer I. Arumainayagam received the Arjuna Award (Lifetime). He was part of the 1962 Asian Games gold-medal side and collected three Durand Cup titles.
Why the top honour stayed empty
The Khel Ratna, renamed in 2021 after hockey great Major Dhyan Chand, goes for spectacular international performance over four years. It carries a medallion, citation and cash prize of Rs 25 lakh. The ministry announcement of the 2025 awards confirmed no name was put forward.
According to reporting in The Times of India, the committee at its December 2025 meeting discussed compound archer Jyothi Surekha Vennam and women’s cricket captain Harmanpreet Kaur and vice-captain Smriti Mandhana. None advanced. Cricket lacks a formal points table of the kind used for Olympic sports, so the panel usually leans on Board of Control for Cricket in India nominations. No such nominations arrived for the two cricketers. Mohammed Shami was the last cricketer to win the honour, in 2023.
An earlier shortlist process had floated hockey’s Hardik Singh as a sole Khel Ratna possibility and 24 names for Arjuna. The final cut dropped the top award entirely and trimmed Arjuna to 17. Public conversation on X stayed largely congratulatory toward the named athletes, with particular pride posts for Lalremsiami from Mizoram, while noting the rarity of a blank year and cricket’s absence from the roll.
The pattern of vacant years
The award has sat empty only twice before. Those gaps now form a clear historical line.
- 2008: No award conferred.
- 2014: No award conferred.
- 2025: No award conferred.
In between, the ministry has often named multiple winners in a single cycle. Four shared the honour in 2024: chess world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, hockey captain Harmanpreet Singh, para-athlete Praveen Kumar and double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker. Earlier multi-recipient years include 2021 (twelve names), 2020, 2019, 2016 and several others. The 2025 blank therefore lands after a period of expansive recognition and returns the top prize to its original exceptional character.
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.
The PIB release used that language for the second-tier honour. Parallel wording for the Dronacharya Award stresses consistent work that enables athletes to excel internationally.
How the selection bar actually works
Nominations arrive from national federations, the Indian Olympic Association, Sports Authority of India, state governments and previous winners. A verification step checks achievements and anti-doping status. A twelve-member committee then scores performances.
Eighty percent of the weight sits on medals at Olympics, Paralympics, world championships, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. The remaining twenty percent covers the profile of the events. Cricket and other non-Olympic disciplines rely more on overall individual performance. The committee may recommend only the highest-scoring athlete or athletes within a discipline and is not required to fill the Khel Ratna slot every year. Full details of the four-year performance criteria and points system have guided panels since a 2015 revision.
The same process produced the earlier shortlist that included 24 Arjuna names before the final recommendations narrowed.
Coaches and the promotion award
Three coaches took the regular Dronacharya Award: Parveer Singh (athletics), Chhote Lal Yadav (boxing) and Neha Nandkumar Chavan (shooting). Lifetime Dronacharya honours went to boxing coach Dharmendra Singh Yadav and wrestling coach Virender Kumar.
- Parveer Singh, athletics
- Chhote Lal Yadav, boxing
- Neha Nandkumar Chavan, shooting
- Dharmendra Singh Yadav, boxing (lifetime)
- Virender Kumar, wrestling (lifetime)
The Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar, given to organisations that visibly promote and develop sport, went to the Army Paralympic Node in Pune.
What the Arjuna spread reveals
Athletics supplied three names. Badminton, chess, hockey and kabaddi each supplied two. Shooting, boxing, rowing and the para and deaf categories filled the rest. The mix reaches beyond the medal-heavy Olympic core into indigenous and adaptive sports.
The Arjuna Award cash prize of 15 lakh sits below the Khel Ratna’s 25 lakh, yet the sheer number of recipients this cycle keeps financial and ceremonial recognition flowing even when the top slot stays closed. Applications were open online; self-nomination was allowed. The volume of submissions forced the committee to draw a firm line.
Previous multi-Ratna years had raised expectations that strong results would automatically produce a top honour. The 2025 outcome resets that assumption. A vacant year does not diminish the 17 Arjuna careers; it simply records that none of the files, in the committee’s final view, cleared the highest threshold.
The roll of honour for Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna therefore gains no new entry for the third time in more than three decades. The Arjuna list, coaches and Army Paralympic Node add their names instead, and the pattern of selective restraint continues.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which years has the Khel Ratna award been left vacant?
The honour went unawarded in 2008, 2014 and now 2025, the only three blank years since it was instituted in 1991-92.
What cash prize accompanies the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna?
Recipients receive Rs 25 lakh along with a medallion and citation; the amount was last revised upward in 2020.
How many athletes received the Arjuna Award for 2025?
Exactly 17 sportspersons were named for outstanding performance, plus one lifetime Arjuna for footballer I. Arumainayagam.
What is the main difference in criteria between Khel Ratna and Arjuna?
Khel Ratna demands spectacular international results over four years scored heavily on Olympic and world medals; Arjuna looks for good four-year performance plus leadership and sportsmanship and is conferred on a larger group.
Who chaired the 2025 National Sports Awards selection committee?
Former Supreme Court judge Justice (Retd.) Arun Kumar Mishra headed the panel whose recommendations the ministry accepted.
