The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (RGKR) is India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

’s highest honour given for achievement in sports. The words "Khel Ratna" literally mean "Sports Gem

Gemstone

A gemstone or gem is a piece of mineral, which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments...

" in Hindi. The award is named after the late Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi was the sixth Prime Minister of India . He took office after his mother's assassination on 31 October 1984; he himself was assassinated on 21 May 1991. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India when he took office at the age of 40.Rajiv Gandhi was the elder son of Indira...

, former Prime Minister of India

Prime Minister of India

The Prime Minister of India , as addressed to in the Constitution of India — Prime Minister for the Union, is the chief of government, head of the Council of Ministers and the leader of the majority party in parliament...

. It carries a medal, a scroll of honour and a substantial cash component. Up to 2004-05, the cash component was Rs. 500,000/- (c.11,500 USD).The money has been increased from Rs500,000 to Rs750,000.

The award was instituted in the year 1991-92 to supply the lack of a supreme national accolade in the field of sports. Predating the RGKR are the Arjuna award

Arjuna award

The Arjuna Awards were instituted in 1961 by the government of India to recognize outstanding achievement in National sports. The award carries a cash prize of 500,000, a bronze statuette of Arjuna and a scroll....

s that have always been given to outstanding sportspersons in each of many sporting disciplines every year. The Khel Ratna was devised to be an overarching honour, conferred for outstanding sporting performance, whether by an individual or a team, across all sporting disciplines in a given year.

List of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awardees

S.No.	Year	Name of the Sportsperson(s)	Sport Discipline
01	1991-92	Viswanathan Anand Viswanathan Anand V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....	Chess Chess Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
02	1992-93	Geet Sethi Geet Sethi Geet Siriram Sethi of India is a professional player of English billiards who dominated the sport throughout much of the 1990s, and a notable amateur snooker player. He is a six-time winner of the professional-level and a three-time winner of the amateur World Championships, and holder of two...	Billiards Billiards Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
03	1993-94	Not Conferred*	-
04	1994-95	Cdr. Homi D. Motivala Homi Motivala Homi Dady Motivala is an Indian sportsperson in Yachting.He received the Arjuna award for best performance in yachting for the year 1993, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award jointly with P. K. Garg for overall best performance in sports for the year 1994–95 and the Dronacharya Award for "Coaching...  (Joint)	Yachting Yachting Yachting refers to recreational sailing or boating, the specific act of sailing or using other water vessels for sporting purposes.-Competitive sailing:...  (Team Event)
04	1994-95	Lt. Cdr. P. K. Garg P. K. Garg Captain Pushpendra Kumar Garg is an Indian sportsperson in yachting. He formed a team with Homi Motivala and won the bronze medal in the enterprise class at the 1990 and 1994 Asian Games held at Beijing and Hiroshima respectively. They were also the world champions in the same class in 1993. P. K...  (Joint)	Yachting Yachting Yachting refers to recreational sailing or boating, the specific act of sailing or using other water vessels for sporting purposes.-Competitive sailing:...  (Team Event)
05	1995-96	Karnam Malleswari Karnam Malleswari Karnam Malleswari is an Indian Weightlifter. To her first time she participated in the 'National Junior weight lifting championship and stood First. In 1992 she participated in the Asian champion ship which took place in Thailand and stood second and won three silver medals. She also won three...	Weightlifting
06	1996-97	Nameirakpam Kunjarani (Joint)	Weightlifting
06	1996-97	Leander Paes Leander Paes Leander Adrian Paes, pronounced pās, is an Indian professional tennis player who currently features in the doubles events in the ATP tour and the Davis Cup tournament...  (Joint)	Tennis Tennis Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
07	1997-98	Sachin Tendulkar Sachin Tendulkar Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket. He is the only male player to score a double century in the history of ODI cricket...	Cricket Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
08	1998-99	Jyotirmoyee Sikdar Jyotirmoyee Sikdar Jyotirmoyee Sikdar is a Member of Parliament, India representing Krishnagar of West Bengal in the 14th Lok Sabha. She is affiliated to the Communist Party of India ....	Athletics Athletics (track and field) Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking...
09	1999–2000	Dhanraj Pillay Dhanraj Pillay Dhanraj Pillay is a field hockey player and former captain of the Indian hockey team. He is currently the manager of the Indian Hockey team...	Hockey Field hockey Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
10	2000-01	Pullela Gopichand Pullela Gopichand Pullela Gopichand is an Indian Badminton player.He won the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001 defeating Chen Hong of China in the finals by 15-12,15-6. He became the second Indian to achieve this feat after Prakash Padukone, who won it in 1980...	Badminton Badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
11	2001-02	Abhinav Bindra Abhinav Bindra Abhinav Singh Bindra is an Indian shooter from Zirakpur, Mohali, Punjab and is the current World and Olympic champion in the 10 m Air Rifle event...	Shooting Shooting Shooting is the act or process of firing rifles, shotguns or other projectile weapons such as bows or crossbows. Even the firing of artillery, rockets and missiles can be called shooting. A person who specializes in shooting is a marksman...
12	2002-03	Anjali Ved Pathak Bhagwat Anjali Ved Pathak Bhagwat Anjali Bhagwat ,born on 5th December 1969 in a Marathi Daivajna family) is a rifle shooter from India. In the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, she won four golds in the individual and pairs events of Air rifle and Smallbore Rifle... (Joint)	Shooting Shooting Shooting is the act or process of firing rifles, shotguns or other projectile weapons such as bows or crossbows. Even the firing of artillery, rockets and missiles can be called shooting. A person who specializes in shooting is a marksman...
12	2002-03	K. M. Beenamol K. M. Beenamol Kalayathumkuzhi Mathews Beenamol, popularly known as K M Beenamol is an international athlete from India. She became the third Indian women to reach an Olympics semi-final since P. T. Usha Kalayathumkuzhi Mathews Beenamol, popularly known as K M Beenamol (born August 15, 1975, Kombidinjal, a...  (Joint)	Athletics Athletics (track and field) Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking...
13	2003-04	Anju Bobby George Anju Bobby George Anju Bobby George is an Indian athlete. Anju Bobby George made history when she won the bronze medal in Long Jump at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics in Paris. With this achievement, she became the first Indian athlete ever to win a medal in a World Championships in Athletics jumping...	Athletics Athletics (track and field) Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking...
14	2004-05	Lt. Col Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore is an Indian shooter who won the silver medal in Men's Double Trap at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens...	Shooting Shooting Shooting is the act or process of firing rifles, shotguns or other projectile weapons such as bows or crossbows. Even the firing of artillery, rockets and missiles can be called shooting. A person who specializes in shooting is a marksman...
15	2005-06	Pankaj Advani Pankaj Advani Pankaj Arjan Advani is an Indian Billiards and Snooker player. A winner of seven World Titles in Billiards and Snooker, he is considered to be the one of the best Billiards Player India has produced...	Billiards Billiards Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...  and Snooker Snooker Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
16	2006-07	Manavjit Singh Sandhu Manavjit Singh Sandhu Manavjit Singh Sandhu is an Indian sport shooter who specializes in trap shooting. He is a Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awardee 2006 and Arjuna Awardee 1998....	Shooting Shooting Shooting is the act or process of firing rifles, shotguns or other projectile weapons such as bows or crossbows. Even the firing of artillery, rockets and missiles can be called shooting. A person who specializes in shooting is a marksman...
17	2007-08	Mahendra Singh Dhoni Mahendra Singh Dhoni Mahendra Singh Dhoni is an Indian cricketer and the current captain of the Indian national cricket team. He made his One Day International debut in December 2004 against Bangladesh, and a year later played his first Test, this time against Sri Lanka.Under his captaincy, India won the 2007 ICC...	Cricket Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
18	2008-09	Mary Kom Mary Kom Mangte Chungneijang Merykom, also known as MC Mary Kom or Mary Kom, is a female boxer from Manipur, India who is supported by Olympic Gold Quest. Mary Kom, a mother of two, is five times World Boxing Champion, successively...  (Joint)	Boxing Boxing Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
18	2008-09	Vijender Singh (Joint)	Boxing Boxing Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
18	2008-09	Sushil Kumar Sushil Kumar (wrestler) Sushil Kumar Solanki is an Indian World Champion wrestler who won the gold medal in the 66 kg freestyle competition at the FILA 2010 World Wrestling Championships and a bronze medal in the Men's 66kg Freestyle Wrestling event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Kumar defeated Leonid Spiridonov of...  (Joint)	Wrestling Wrestling Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
19	2009-10	Saina Nehwal Saina Nehwal Saina Nehwal is an Indian Khel Ratna badminton player currently ranked 4 in the world by Badminton World Federation. Saina is the first Indian woman to reach the singles quarterfinals at the Olympics and the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships...	Badminton Badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
20	2010-11	Gagan Narang Gagan Narang Gagan Narang is an ace Indian shooter, especially in Air rifle shooting, supported by the Olympic Gold Quest. He is the first Indian to qualify for the London Olympics.-Career:...	Shooting

• The award was not conferred upon any sportsperson or team in the year 1993-94.

External links

• Khel Ratna award 2007