Jwala Gutta selected for Arjuna award

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India's top doubles badminton player Jwala Gutta has finally been selected for the prestigious Arjuna award that is given by the Indian government, for excellence in the sporting field.

Jwala who had won the gold medal at the Commonwealth games in 2010, in the women's doubles badminton event partnering with Ashwini Ponnappa, is happy with her nomination, and dedicated the award to her family.

The pair of Jwala & Ashwini is currently ranked No.22 in the World badminton rankings. Alongwith playing in the women's doubles events, Jwala also pairs with Valiyaveetil Diju in the mixed doubles and they are currently ranked No.46 as per the world badminton rankings.

(It may be noted that Jwala Gutta-V.Diju have recently lost some ground in the world rankings as Diju is still recovering from a back injury and has been out of action since the Commonwealth games-2010. They were earlier ranked in the top 10 pairs of the world)

Other than being the winner of the CWG gold medal, Jwala Gutta also has had good success earlier on the international badminton circuit, such as winning the Bulgaria Open Grand Prix, the Bitzburger Open, the Dutch Open GP in 2008, and reaching the finals of the mixed doubles event in the World Super Series Masters Finals that was held in Malaysia in 2009.

About Arjuna Award:

The Arjuna award, named after 'Arjuna' the warrior archer of the Mahabharat epic, is a prestigious award that is given to talented sportspersons in India, for excellence in the field of sports. It is next in stature only to the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, which is India's highest sporting honour.

The Arjuna award carries with it, a cash prize of Rs. 5 lacs, a statuette, and a scroll of honour is also given to all the Arjuna awardees.

The earlier Arjuna awardees in badminton are listed below:

1961- Nandu Natekar
1962- Meena Shah
1965- Dinesh Khanna
1967- Suresh Goel
1969- Dipu Ghosh
1970- Damayanti Tambay
1971- Shobha Moorthy
1972- Prakash Padukone
1974- Raman Ghosh
1975- Davinder Ahuja
1976- Ami Ghia
1977-78- Kanwal Thakur Singh
1980-81- Syed Modi
1982- Partho Ganguli
1982 - Madhumita Bisht
1991- Rajeev Bagga
2000- Pullela Gopichand
1999- George Thomas
2003- Madasu Srinivas Rao (Physically Challenged category)
2004- Abhinn Shyam Gupta
2005- Aparna Popat
2006- Chetan Anand
2006- Rohit Bhakar (Physically Challenged category)
2008- Anup Sridhar
2009- Saina Nehwal

Jwala Gutta's name will get added to this Arjuna awardee list soon, has said that the award is a motivatation for her to do even better at the forthcoming World Championships that are going be held in London in August-2011.

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