The Centre announced the list of Padma Shri awardees for 2022 yesterday, with Olympic gold medalist in javelin throwing Neeraj Chopra and para shooter Avani Lekhara among those honoured.

It may be mentioned that Devendra Jhajharia, a star paralympic athlete, was the only sportsperson to receive the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest civilian honour.

Jhajharia has two gold medals in the Paralympic Games javelin competition, one in 2004 in Athens and the other in Rio 2016.

Last year, he won a silver in the F46 event at the Tokyo Paralympics.

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Kalaripayattu (indigenous martial art form) legend Sankaranarayana Menon Chundayil, Para javelin thrower Sumit Antil, para-badminton player Pramod Bhagat, former international martial arts champion Faisal Ali Dar, women’s hockey player Vandana Kataria, and former Indian football team captain Brahmanand Sankhwalkar are among the other sportspersons to receive the Padma Shri award.

The Padma Awards are one of India’s highest civilian honours, given out on the eve of Republic Day every year. Padma Vibhushan (for exceptional and distinguished service), Padma Bhushan (for distinguished service of higher-order), and Padma Shri (for distinguished service ) are the three categories of awards.

The award is intended to recognise achievements in all fields or disciplines where public service is a factor.

The awards are conferred by the President of India Ram Nath Kovind at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March/ April every year. This year the President has approved conferment of 128 Padma Awards including 2 duo case (in a duo case, the Award is counted as one). The list this year comprises 4 Padma Vibhushan, 17 Padma Bhushan and 107 Padma Shri Awards. 34 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 10 persons from the category of Foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI and 13 Posthumous awardees.