Even as the BCCI is trying to boot out former India captain Kapil Dev, the Sports Ministry has bestowed him with the honour of leading this year’s award committees for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna and Dronacharya Awards.As is the norm, the ministry has included five Olympians and four Arjuna Award winners in each committee to choose the winners.Incidentally, Kapil had led the committees once before in 2001,when shooter Abhinav Bindra was controversially awarded the Khel Ratna Award.Like Kapil, Prakash Padukone gets another chance to be on the committee. The genial All-England champ was made the chairman in 2002, but he was not happy with the treatment meted out to him. In fact, he had said he was surprised to be replaced by another person the following year while he thought he had a two-year stint.Kapil will be helped by a battery of experts from various disciplines in picking the nominees this year. They are Karnam Malleswari (weightlifting), PT Usha (athletics), Leander Paes (tennis), Bhaichung Bhutia (football), Sita Gosain (hockey), Indu Puri (TT), SN Mukherjee (vice-chancellor, LNIPE), Anjali Bhagwat (shooting), Limba Ram (archery), Ram Mehar Singh (kabaddi) and Atulya Mishra (secretary sport, Maharashtra).Though Kapil will also be the chairman of the Dronacharya committee, it will be headed by Padukone. He will also shoulder the additional responsibility of chairing the Dhyanchand Award committee. Prakash will be assisted by Nirupama Mankad (tennis), Suma Shirur (shooting), Michael Ferriera, MP Ganesh (hockey), Bahadur Singh (athletics), Brojeswari Devi (judo), Subhash Verma (wrestler), Shyam Sunder Rao (volleyball), GS Bangu (hockey), Munnuswamy Venu (boxing) and Shankar Menon (secretary sport, Tamil Nadu).As usual, they will consult and coordinate with three people from the sports ministry — joint secretary I Srinivaas, SAI Director General Ratan Wattal, and deputy secretary with the minister, who will be the convenor.
