Arjuna picks: Telangana 2, Centre finally 1
Badminton’s Gayatri Gopichand and shooter Dhanush Srikanth have been named for the 2025 Arjuna Award, the Telangana CMO said — a win the state will happily claim while Delhi takes a bow months late.
Two Telangana athletes have been selected for the 2025 Arjuna Awards after a prolonged wait for the announcement.
Telangana got what it earned: two Arjuna Award selections. The Chief Minister’s Office congratulated badminton player P. Gayatri Gopichand and shooter Dhanush Srikanth on August 18, noting they “have been selected for the Arjuna Awards” and are “a matter of pride for Telangana and the nation,” and sending best wishes to all National Sports Awards–2025 winners.
Both names were already in the frame. A June report listed Gayatri and Dhanush among the Arjuna recommendations the previous year’s panel sent up, even as the Union ministry sat on the announcement. The Centre’s timeline has been elastic; the athletes’ performances were not.
For the record: Gayatri is recorded by the state as a Hyderabad shuttler who featured at the 2023 Asian Games. Dhanush’s 10m air rifle gold at the 2022 Deaflympics is on the Union’s own magazine pages. Those are the achievements on paper; the ministry’s detailed citations, ceremony date and the full final list have not been posted in an accessible release yet.
So, two Telangana athletes get the Arjuna nod their results justified last year. The BJP-led Centre can explain the delay whenever it finds the PDF.