Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Khel Ranta Award is now Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. It was previously named after Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award.
Major Dhyan Chand is widely known as one of the greatest hockey players in the history of sports.
Dhyan Chand is known for his extraordinary goal-scoring techniques in Hockey, He, with his team, earned three Olympic Gold medals, in 1928, 1932, and 1936. In this era, India has dominated field hockey. India used to play for the British. it was “British India”. His influence extended beyond these victories. India earned gold from the field hockey event in seven out of eight Olympics from 1928 to 1964.
He was popularly known as a wizard or magician of Hockey. He had super control on the hockey ball. The Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award in Sports and Games, formerly known as Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, is the highest sporting honor of India. It was established in 1991-92. The award is given for the performance by a sportsperson in a year. In view of the ideas given by the 2014 honor choice council, the Ministry amended the models in February 2015 to think about the presentation over a time of four years.
After this revised category Viswanathan Anand was the person to receive this award.
There is a twelve-member committee, which evaluates the performances of a sportsperson at various International events like the Olympics, the Asian Championship, Commonwealth Games, Paralympics. There are now 15 categories in this award nomination. As of 2020, the award comprises a medal, a certificate, and a cash prize of ₹25 lakh
In recent times, Indian cricketer, Rohit Sharma got this award for his performance. Mariyappan Thangavelu got this award for Para athletes. In other fields, Manika Batra (for Table tennis) Vinesh Phogat ( for Wrestling), and Rani Rampal (for Hockey).
