London, 28 Jun: India\u2019s first individual gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra, and Paralympian Deepa Malik have been honoured with Special Recognition Awards at a ceremony celebrating Indians who have made a significant impact globally.
\nIndia Global Forum\u2019s (IGF) annual UK-India Awards 2024 at Fairmont Windsor Park, near London, on Thursday evening, honoured the sporting legends alongside a \u2018Global Indian Icon Award\u2019 for social crusader Arunachalam Muruganantham, in recognition of his revolutionary work in menstrual hygiene captured in the 2018 Akshay Kumar film \u2018Pad Man\u2019.
\nLord Anthony Bamford, founder of multinational construction giant JCB, was honoured with the Lifetime Contribution to UK-India Relations.
\n\u201cFor a global sport like the Olympics, it makes complete sense to have a closer relationship with the world’s largest population. Every fourth or fifth person in the world is in India, so there’s a lot of synergy there,\u201d said Bindra, on India potentially hosting the Olympics during a discussion around the future of sport in the country.
\n\u201cBut more than infrastructure, I think what we need is a vision that actually transcends far beyond the sporting events itself. The Olympics, whenever held in India, has to be seen as a catalyst for change, how the Games can really address challenges and how it can seize opportunities.
\n“It really has to be a springboard for how we can make India healthier and make India a more inclusive country,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to use it as a guide to make India better through sport,\u201d Bhindra said.
\nBindra, who is a torchbearer at the Paris Olympics next month, expressed confidence in India\u2019s performance in the games.
\n\u201cWe had our best ever start with seven at Tokyo and I’m quite sure that we better that and come back with our best-ever performance; and hopefully with our first female Olympic champion,\u201d added the retired sport shooter.
\nDr Deepa Malik, the first Indian Woman Paralympic Medallist and former president of the Paralympic Committee of India, echoed the sentiment for the Paralympics.
\n\u201cIn Paralympics, India’s journey to Paris 2024 is going to be far better than Tokyo 2020. The number of sports has increased \u2013 the last time we participated in nine sports, this time we are participating in 12 sports. Women’s participation has increased; we do see a potential there for medals to grow. I do see them in double digits again,\u201d she said.
\nThe UK-India Awards, which came towards the end of the week-long IGF London summit, recognise outstanding contributions of leaders in business, professional services, government, culture and social impact, highlighting their remarkable achievements in strengthening bilateral ties.
\n\u201cMy ambition is to be able to put this relationship with our business partners at a stage where it is really second to none, one in which innovation that happens at universities and research centres here in the UK has Indian partners and Indian partners help take those innovations to the global market by producing in India.
\n\u201cIn other words, a partnership that we make together for the world,\u201d said Indian High Commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami in his address at the ceremony.
\nAmong some of the other winners this year were a \u2018Significant Contribution to UK-India Relations Award\u2019 for London\u2019s Science Museum Group, \u2018Research & Innovation Award\u2019 for the Serum Institute of India and the University of Oxford for their vaccine collaborations and the \u2018Culture and Creativity Award\u2019 for Teamwork Arts behind the Jaipur Literature Festival in London.
\nThe IGF UK-India Awards founder Manoj Ladwa added: \u201cIndia\u2019s transformation is not only in India\u2019s interest, but also in the interest of the UK, which I believe stands the most to gain and, in fact, most to contribute as a partner of choice in this incredible journey.
\n\u201cWhether it\u2019s our world-class universities, our cutting-edge research institutes, our global supply chain networks, our sports and tech expertise, our defence and security capabilities, or the sheer financial might of the City of London, the UK has it all.\u201d (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London, 28 Jun: India\u2019s first individual gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra, and Paralympian Deepa Malik have been honoured with Special Recognition Awards at a ceremony celebrating Indians who have made a significant impact globally. India Global Forum\u2019s (IGF) annual UK-India Awards 2024 at Fairmont Windsor Park, near London, on Thursday evening, honoured the sporting legends alongside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-243154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}