Indian basketball superstar Geethu Anna Jose to receive Arjuna Award this year

Geethu Anna Jose has done it all for Indian Basketball, and then some.

Perhaps the finest basketball player that Indian has produced - of any gender - in recent times, Jose has been the center-piece of India's Women's national squad for the last 10 years. The 29-year-old out of Kottayam, Kerala, has enjoyed a glittering career, which has included performing as one of the leading scorers, shot-blockers, and rebounders in all of Asia at FIBA Asia Women's Championships, leading India to gold medal wins at the Asian Beach Games and the 1st FIBA Asia 3x3 Championship. She finished as the top scorer in the 2009 FIBA Asia Championship and was MVP at the CommonWealth Games basketball tournament in 2004. At the club level, Jose has played professionally in Australia and in Thailand, winning MVP honours with the former when with the Ringwood Hawks. Back home in India, she has been a one-woman wrecking crew, winning almost every tournament she has participated in for her clubs Indian Railways or Southern Railway. As a senior, she led the Indian Railways women's squad to nine consecutive National Championship titles. She also became the first (and only) Indian to earn trials with the WNBA - the world's finest women's basketball league - in 2011 when she worked out with the Chicago Sky, Los Angeles Sparks, and San Antonio Silver Stars.

And now, this 6-foot-2 hoops living legend will finally be conferred the honour that she has deserved for years: Jose's name is among the 15 Indian athletes recommended for this year's Arjuna Award, the prestigious national award handed to sports-persons in India. Jose will become the 17th basketball player in India to receive this award, but only the first since 2001. She will also be only the second women's basketball player to win the Arjuna Award since Suman Sharma in 1991.

Despite her accomplishments, Jose's previous applications for this award had failed, and the Arjuna Award Selection Committee - led by former Indian cricketing legend Kapil Dev - only accepted her on the fifth try. "I'm glad that the government has begun to honour women hoopsters," she told Times of India upon hearing this news.

Named after the mythical hero of the Mahabharata Arjun, [and now quoting from Wikipedia] "the Arjuna Awards are given by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of the Government of India to recognize outstanding achievement in National sports. Instituted in 1961, the award carries a cash prize of 500,000 rupees, a bronze statuette of Arjuna, and a scroll."

[More from Wikipedia]"The Government has recently revised the scheme for the Arjun Award. As per the revised guidelines, to be eligible for the Award, a sportsperson should not only have had good performance consistently for the previous three years at the international level with excellence for the year for which the Award is recommended, but should also have shown qualities of leadership, sportsmanship and a sense of discipline."

Multiple sports-persons from various avenues are conferred the award every year. This year, the 15 sports-persons who have been recommended by the Selection Committee for the Arjuna Award are Akhilesh Varma (Archery), Tintu Luka (Athletics), HN Girisha (Paralympics), V Diju (Badminton), Geethu Ann Jose (Basketball), Jai Bhagwan (Boxing), R Ashwin (Cricket), Anirban Lahiri (Golf), Mamta Pujari (Kabaddi), Saji Thomas (Rowing), Heena Sidhu (Shooting), Anaka Alankamany (Squash), Tom Joseph (Volleyball), Renubala Chanu (Weightlifting) and Sunil Rana (Wrestling). The awards will be handed out on August 29 in New Delhi.

Surprisingly, no athlete was recommended for the coveted Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award this year, which is India's highest honour for achievement in sports and given to the absolute top achievers. No Indian basketball player has yet won this award.

On a side-note, it seems like legendary Indian basketball coach Sankaran Subramanian was once again ignored from the short-list of recipients of this year's Dronacharya Award, the parallel award given for excellence in sports coaching in India. No basketball coach has ever been conferred this award, but for his tremendous achievements over multiple decades, Dr. Subramanian - who passed away last year - should receive this award posthumously.

Congratulations to Jose for her well-deserved achievement. She has been head and shoulders above any basketball player in the nation for years and is one of the few players we've ever had in our history that could stand among the best players in the continent. At 29 and recently married, Jose peak years might be the near rear-view mirror and she seems to be enjoying a period of semi-retirement. Still, hoop fans in India will hope that she will have a few more strong years on the court ahead of her.

For now, we hope that this honour brings more attention to the national mainstream audience of Jose's past accomplishments in the game. Furthermore, her conferment of the Arjuna Award can also shine the spotlight on Indian basketball and women's basketball in particular. She can continue to serve as a great role model for more young Indians hoping to follow in her footsteps. Despite her accomplishments, Jose never managed to lead India deep into the biggest FIBA Asia Championship or realize her WNBA dreams. But she went further than anyone else, and as a winner of the Arjuna Award, she can help show the way to the new generation of young ballers the way to realizing those dreams, too.

Legendary Indian basketball coach Dr. S Subramanian should win posthumous Dronacharya Award

Named after Dronacharya - the legendary teacher of the Mahabharata mythology - the Indian government has presented the 'Dronacharya Award' since 1985 for excellence in sports coaching. The name of the award is only fitting, as the parallel award given to sportspersons is named after Dronacharya's favourite pupil, Arjun. Since the award's inception, Indian coaches in the fields of Athletics, Boxing, Wrestling, Chess, Cricket, Football, Volleyball, Billiards & Snooker, Weightlifting, Powerlifting, Shooting, Kabaddi, Yatching, Hockey, Volleyball, Squash, Rowing, Archery, Gymnastics, Table-Tennis and even Kho-Kho have received the prestigious annual award. And yet, not once has a basketball coach come close.

But for the second consecutive year, the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) has applied for the late Dr. Sankaran Subramanian - one of the greatest Indian basketball minds of All Time - to be nominated for the award. Subramanian passed away last summer at the age of 75 after dedicating 43 fruitful years to coaching hoops in India. He has spotted and developed some of India's finest players over the years, created the country's finest basketball academy, and been responsible for the success of various teams over the years. And yet, his contributions - like those of other masterminds in Indian basketball - have been ignored by most of Indian sports fraternity outside of basketball.

This year, former captain of India's Hockey team Ajitpal Singh is heading the committee for selecting the Dronacharya awardee. The committee will have 15 members, including 12 eminent sportspersons and three officials, who will be the director general of the Sports Authority of India and a joint secretary and deputy secretary from the ministry. Several coaches are given the award every year, and in 2013, there were five recipients. The Dronacharya and Arjuna awards will be handed out on August 29, 2014 in New Delhi.

Once again, the BFI's President RS Gill has sent the selection committee details of Subramanian's achievements, and today (August 11), the committee is meeting in New Delhi to decide on the final nominations. Hopefully, the slight against this great coach - who was ignored by the mainstream for over four decades of dedication to the game as a coach - will be corrected and he will be given this highest coaching honour in India posthumously.

Subramanian has a long history of success, for himself and for the talents that he produced. From 1968 onwards, he had been thoroughly involved in coaching and developing players in Punjab and for the Indian national team. Subramanian was the coach of the Punjab state team, the director and chief of the Ludhiana Basketball Academy (LBA) in Punjab and also the director of the National Institute of Sports in Patiala. He was the man behind the discovery and development of several star players who are currently in India's national men squad - the team which achieved the 'Wonder of Wuhan' by defeating China at the FIBA Asia Cup last month - including Amrit Pal Singh, Amjyot Singh, Yadwinder Singh, and Palpreet Singh. He was the man who first honed the skills of Satnam Singh Bhamara, India's 17-year-old 7-footed phenom who is garnering hype to become the future face of Indian basketball. Over the past years, he trained hordes of athletes (at the Senior as well as Junior level) who went on to represent India in FIBA Asia Championships, in Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, and even the Olympics.

Subramanian played basketball for his school and college teams and later joined Indian Air Force in the year 1958. He played in Air Force and Inter-Services Championships and also participated in the National Basketball Championships for three consecutive years from 1964-1967. He took to coaching after that in 1968, working with the Air Force team and with Services and leading them to wins in several national level tournaments. He also briefly coached the Mysore Girls team in the early 70s. He joined NIS in Patiala in 1973 from where he worked to hone several junior and senior players and host national coaching camps at NIS.

Subramanian had been the head coach of the Punjab State teams from 2000-2013, and led them to an era of great dominance in this period, collecting 14 Gold, 13 Silver and 9 Bronze Medals in Sub-Junior, Youth, Junior and Senior National Championships. Under his tutelage, Punjab's Senior Men's team won the National Championship in 2012 and finished as runners-up this year.

He was also a FIBA certified International Referee in basketball and had officiated in many international Tournaments in India and abroad.

The number of talented stars who had blossomed under his tutelage during this period is too vast to be mentioned here, but some of them include Arjuna Award winner Manmohan Singh, Paramjit Singh, who represented Indian in the 1980 Olympic Basketball team, and Tarlok Singh Sandhu. In India's most recent Men's squad, a record number of six players were developed under Subramanian in his Ludhiana Academy: TJ Sahi, Yadwinder Singh, Jagdeep Singh Bains, Amjyot Singh, Amrit Pal Singh, and Satnam Singh Bhamara. He also trained women's international Kiranjit Kaur, who won gold for India in the 2012 Asian Beach Games.

Subramanian was originally from Tamil Nadu, but it was to Punjab Basketball where he dedicated in life, and it was in Patiala, Punjab, where he breathed his last breath. His daughter, Indira Bali, summed up his love for basketball in the perfect way. "He was a man who would have died on the Basketball Court rather than in a hospital," she said.

Basketball in India has recognized this great legend of the sport - hopefully, the Government at large does too and brings his memory the honour it deserves. It is preposterous that basketball doesn't yet have a Dronacharya Award winner, but Dr. Subramanian would make the perfect nominee to finally break that curse. It will only be right if, inspired by Guru Dronacharya himself, we can refer to Dr. Subramanian as 'Guru Subramanian' too, because he was indeed one of the nation's greatest teachers - of any sport.