Indian cricket skipper Virat Kohli, Rio Olympics bronze medallist wrestler Sakshi Malik, gymnast Dipa Karmakar were honoured with the Padma Shri by President Pranab Mukherjee at a civil investiture ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Thursday.
Besides Kohli, Sakshi and Karmakar, five other sportspersons were named for the prestigious Padma Shri when the honours list was declared on the Republic Day on 26 January.
They included Paralympians Deepa Malik and Mariyappan Thangavelu, hockey captain PR Sreejesh, discus thrower Vikas Gowda and blind cricket team captain Shekhar Naik.
The dignitaries presented on the occasion were Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
Kohli had been in the form of a lifetime over the last one year, which included four Test double-centuries as well as four centuries in the 2016 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2016.
While Sakshi helped break India’s medal-less run in the Rio event last year, Karmakar, who became the first-ever Indian female gymnast to qualify for the Olympics, finished fourth in the women’s vault finals, in which she produced the highly dangerous ‘Produnova’ vault.
Feature image source: Agencies