Prashanti Singh: Hoopistani Indian Basketball Hall of Fame

A national captain. A veteran of countless major international events. The most-decorated domestic player in India. An Arjuna Awardee. And Indian Basketball's only Padma Shri winner. With her glittering list of accolades, Prashanti Singh now easily carves her name into the Hoopistani Indian Basketball Hall of Fame.

Born in Varanasi, Singh quickly rose the ranks for the Uttar Pradesh junior teams before finding her footing in college and MTNL for the Delhi state team. Is was with Delhi that she became the most-decorated basketball player in the country, winning 23 medals in various national championships.

The shooting guard first joined India's junior national team in 2002 at age 18. She soon graduated to feature and captain the senior squad, and went on to represent Team India at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games, and six FIBA Asia Women’s Championships (2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013), plus one more at the junior level. Some of her career highlights include a dominant performance against Korea Samsung that handed India an unlikely victory at the 2011 William Jones Cup and being part of India's 2013 FIBA Asia Championship squad that finished at a best-ever fifth place in the tournament.

Over the years, Singh has garnered various honours for her service to the country and to the game, including the Padma Shri in 2019 (the first and only Indian basketball player to receive this award), the 2017 Arjuna Award (only the third women to receive it in basketball), and the 2016-17 Rani Laxmi Bai Bravery Award. Prashanti is one of the five of Varanasi's "Singh Sisters", four of whom have represented India's national women's team.

Click here for more of the Indian Basketball Hall of Fame.

Prashanti Singh joins the very short list of women’s basketball players with an Arjuna Award

This article was first published in my blog for The Times of India Sports on August 27, 2017. Click here to read the original piece.

The Arjuna Award is named after perhaps one the greatest sharpshooters in human mythology. Arjun, the great protagonists of The Mahabharat, was a famed archer and marksmen, and the modern Arjuna Award—instituted by the Indian government—has adopted a bronze statuette of Arjun in a pose of brief meditation before he readies to release the arrow off his bowstring.

This week, another phenomenal marksmen in a completely different field of sport will be getting her dues. Prashanti Singh, the former captain of India’s basketball team, will join the short list of Indian basketball players to win the prestigious Arjuna Award after over a decade of basketball excellence domestically and service to the national team. The 33-year-old shooting guard from Varanasi will become just the third women in history to win an Arjuna Award for basketball.

Singh comes from a family of basketball royalty, even though this royalty originated in a small town with a more strenuous path to climb the ladder of athletic success. Despite the odds, Singh and her sisters battled the traditional patriarchal society to produce an array of basketball stars for the country. Three of her sisters—Divya, Akanksha, and Pratima—joined Prashanti to star for Delhi at the domestic stage and play for India in international tournaments. Her eldest sister Priyanka played domestically and has been a NIS coach. The “Singh Sisters” of Varanasi remain some of the most popular and influential faces in Indian Basketball.

Prashanti Singh, also known by her nickname ‘Boskey’, is now the most decorated women basketball player in India, holding the national record for most number of medals (23) in national championships, most of which came for Delhi while she was an employee for MTNL.  She has represented the national team in the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games, and six FIBA Asia Women’s Championships (2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013), plus one more at the junior level.

Singh has had several memorable moments in the India jersey abroad. At the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship in Japan, she helped India defeat Malaysia to qualify for Level 1 of the tournament. Her personal highlight was the 35-point performance in India’s upset victory over Korea Samsung at the 2011 William Jones Cup in Taiwan. She also played a role in India’s best-ever FIBA ABC finish – fifth place at the ABC in Thailand in 2014 – in an overtime win over Kazakhstan.

With this honour, Singh becomes just the 20th basketball player in the country to receive the Arjuna Award over the past 56 years. What is more startling, however, is that she is only the third women to be bestowed this honour. In 1983, former national captain Suman Sharma became the first Indian women to win an Arjuna Award for basketball. Three years ago, Indian hoops legend Geethu Anna Rahul (formerly Jose) became the second.

Singh’s award, however, makes her the second basketball player in succession to get the Arjuna, and it sure to motivate young women around the country—no matter what their background and launch-pad might be—to pursue greater things in the sport. And she will surely not be the last. Already, the campaign has begun to consider the Indian basketball team’s current captain—Tamil Nadu born Anitha Paul Durai—to be the next player in consideration. Paul Durai has played in eight FIBA Asia Championships, played professionally in Thailand, and won medals for India in international 3×3 championships.

With the sport beginning to get more recognition in the country, there are a number of male players waiting in the flank for their name to be called, too. The current “Big Three” of stars in the Men’s national team—Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, Amjyot Singh, and Amritpal Singh—have been centrepieces for a relatively strong stretch in Indian basketball over the past few years. Another player to consider will be Satnam Singh, who became the first Indian to be drafted into the NBA in 2015.

Currently, Basketball lacks far behind Hockey, Cricket, and Football when it comes to the prestigious national honour, but as the sport continues to grow in India, look for more Prashantis to be in line for the future.

Prashanti Singh receives the prestigious Arjuna Award for Basketball

It's finally official.

Prashanti Singh, the 33-year-old shooting guard born in Varanasi, was conferred the prestigious Arjuna Award by the President of India Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on National Sports Day, August 29. Singh was among a list of 17 Indian athletes to receive the Arjuna Award on Tuesday, from sports including Cricket, Hockey, Paralympics, Golf, and more. Former hockey captain Sardar Singh and Paralympian javelin thrower Devendra Jhajharia were given the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awards. The Arjuna Awardees received statuettes, certificates and cash prize of Rs 5 lakh each.

With her accomplishment, Singh becomes the 20th Indian basketball player to receive the Arjuna Award and just the third woman on the list. The last Indian basketballer to receive an Arjuna was also a woman: Geethu Anna Rahul in 2014.

Singh is now the most decorated women basketball player in India, holding the national record for most number of medals (22) in national championships for Delhi while she was an employee for MTNL. She has represented the national team in the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games, and six FIBA Asia Women’s Championships (2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013), plus one more at the junior level. Last year, Singh and her sisters were given the Rani Laxmi Bai Award in Lucknow.

Leading by example: Indian Women’s Basketball Captain Prashanti Singh

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The success of any organization depends on several different qualities of the individuals who comprise of it and on the outside influences working towards it, but invariably, its true character shows through its leader. A country’s achievements are represented largely by its President or Prime Minister, an army by its general, a multinational company by its CEO, and a sports team by its captain.

If you have been following the recent improvements of the Indian National Women’s Basketball team, you would’ve noticed something beyond just the successful results: you would notice a new-found confidence, youthful energy, an ambition to keep improving, and a savvy awareness amongst the athletes.

It is then perhaps no surprise that all these qualities are exhibited by the team’s leader: the young but experienced Prashanti Singh. Prashanti, 25, has been growing with the national team for around eight years, and now as captain, she oozes of infectious confidence and ambition that has spread amongst the other girls in the squad to help form a formidable young unit.

In a recent discussion, the star shooting guard told me how, despite the dearth of career development and professional opportunities for female basketball players in India, the girls have continued to improve their level for their love of the game. The team’s steady rise has showed on the biggest stage over the past five years – the FIBA Asia Women’s Championship. The girls finished 10th in 2005, 7th in 2007, and 6th at the championship held at Chennai in November 2009.

True, the results have been nothing to write home about, but at least the team is headed in the right direction. One of the highlights of Prashanti’s career was playing in the Asian Indoor Games in Vietnam, where she captained her squad into the tournament’s final only to lose to Thailand by one point and settle for the silver medal.

The current team is the youngest team that Prashanti has played on, and she says that the change in attitude has been very encouraging. “When I first came in, the team only had a few youngsters – now, just like the men’s squad, the majority of the team is of younger girls, who with the help of a few experienced older players, have been given a chance to grow as a team together.”

“We’re performing much better than the boys are!” she boasts – the Indian Women’s team ranks 43rd in the World FIBA rankings, as opposed to the Men, who are 49th. But don’t just follow the rankings – there has been a change in attitude, commitment, and a new-school system of leadership and management that has combined to move the team in a positive direction.

Unfortunately, there are still hurdles for the women’s game in the country. “The system is biased against women,” says Prashanti, who is a Class-III employee working and playing for the MTNL in New Delhi. “The services are slower to help women improve in their careers as compared to the men. Even after my achievements my position at work hasn’t improved. There are only three national level women teams – Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Railways (combined), and Kerala Electricity Board. We have fewer options and less bargaining chips than the men do.”

Because of this, the current team has a lot more girls that are students than those who are in government service, and many of these youngsters are looking for private sponsorship. “We need more teams in India,” she adds, “College students are now more aware of their careers, why would they join a service for a job that isn’t ideal? We need a solution soon, because the good young players won’t settle for these jobs anymore.

“Despite all this, we’re still playing well; and its all for the love of the game. The good news is that we are moving away from the old system of favouritism for the older players – the new girls are looking to develop their game further holistically. Everything is becoming commercialized and they are very aware of how basketball is growing in India and around the world. They are learning things off the court too. Many of them are interested in moving on to leagues in other countries.”

The recent major breakthrough for Indian women in basketball was the success of Geethu Anna Jose. Geethu is India’s biggest basketball star and one of the best players in all of Asia. The talented Keralite played two fruitful seasons with the Ringwood Hawks, a Division II team in Australia in 2007 and 2008. Prashanti notes how Geethu’s game improved under better training and league experience abroad, and she is ready to make that jump, too.

“My aim is to play for a good league abroad,” says Prashanti, “Anywhere where I can hone and improve my skills.”

Talks of a domestic basketball league in India, akin to the NBA or the IPL, have been in the air in recent months, and Prashanti minces no words in sharing her opinions. “We will not improve much by playing in short sporadic tournaments [like the current system]. What we need is a domestic league so that we can get a season of regular games, regular basketball experience of basketball at a competitive level, and thus improve our game.”

Experience is one of the team’s biggest weaknesses: “We start each game with great energy, but begin to struggle whenever the opponents switch tactics to counter us. We need to play more so we can get experienced to deal with different systems and situations. With a league we will learn more about our own potential.”

Another recent weakness of the team was size – for a few years, the squad didn’t have depth beyond Geethu at the Center position. The problem in size also coexisted with over-reliance on the team’s experienced superstars. Prashanti believes that these problems are now improving – for example, the youngster Harjeet expertly filled in for Geethu’s absence for a few recent games. A lot more tall young players are being scouted for the national squad, too.

“We’re improving on several levels,” says Prashanti, “As captain, I have seen great team chemistry between the girls. The youngsters are also gaining confidence and the team doesn’t always have to depend on the seniors. Although we are still relatively small, we are good enough now so that our success doesn’t start and end with our shooters as it used to.”

Prashanti’s responsibilities as captain have also spilled off the court. She has had to be aware of the management and promotional side of the squad, and understands the importance of popularizing the sport of basketball amongst Indian fans. “It will take time for us to improve – we have to be patient,” says Prashanti, “We should play against some Asian countries with which we can compete, and then we can move on step by step to try and match the level of China or South Korea. Given time, we can have world-class players in India, too.”

“If you take the example of cricket: the game only started to gain widespread fame when we won the World Cup in 1983 – and now, 27 years later, with IPL we are at the top of the world. Cricket is a game played by a dozen countries and basketball by over 200 – I’m sure that Indian fans will soon grow fond of basketball, too.”

She added, “People in India are aware of sports a lot more than before – we just have to teach the game to them in whatever language that they understand.”

Prashanti, who is known by the nickname ‘Boskey’, began her love affair with basketball in her early teens. She made her debut with the senior team at the age of 18. She is from the acclaimed ‘Basketball family of Varanasi’, as she is one of four Singh sisters to have represented the Indian national team. Her older sister Divya Singh has also been India’s former captain and has carved her own space in the world of basketball. Divya has moved on to studying about basketball management in the US, leaving Prashanti to take the helm of this ever-improving squad. Younger sisters Akanksha and Pratima are also her teammates.

“I used to follow my sisters to the Varanasi courts, and once I started playing the game, I just couldn’t stop,” says Prashanti, “I was given a break early in a tournament, and ever since, basketball has been my life. I had to find a way to get on the court and play everyday. Our family discussions are always about basketball!”

The national team is blessed to have players with a background and love for the game like Prashanti. The girls will be heading to their next major challenge in the form of the 16th Asian Games (XVI ASIAD) that will be held in Guangzhou, China, from November 12-27, 2010.

With a leader like Prashanti, one thing is for sure: the team will be motivated to do their best at any level. Geethu, the team’s most talented player, has warm words for her captain: “She is a very dedicated player, a very hard worker, and a very supportive captain - her only target is to WIN WIN and WIN! She just can’t stand to lose.”

“I have had great luck in the game,” says Prashanti, “On whatever level I have played basketball, I have kept on winning, with or without anyone else’s support.”

It will be the confidence of this young team, and the confidence of its motivated captain, that will help lead the Indian girls to chart greater heights in the basketball world.

This article was first published as the cover story of the April (fifth) edition of the Sports Keeda e-magazine. Click here to download the magazine

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Divya Singh: Good Girl Gone Basketball

A ‘good Indian girl’ isn’t supposed to be this way. A ‘good Indian girl’ is supposed to listen to her parents, stay publicly inhibited and grounded, and in these slowly changing times in modern India, is allowed to study diligently to achieve an attractive degree.



Because from Day One, a ‘good Indian girl’ is nurtured for eventual her matrimonial advertisement in the supplement copy of the Wednesday newspaper. She is taught how to cook the right Indian meals to keep her future husband happy, she is expected to build a home, churn out descendents (preferably boys) at regular intervals, and sacrifice her own ambitions to satisfy the expectations of both her and her husband’s family.

It is because a woman in India rarely exists for herself: she lives for her parents, and her siblings, and her prying aunties, and her husband, and her children, and so on and on… That’s why the story of a female athlete in India, or a female architect, a writer, a filmmaker, or anyone from a male-centric traditional background, who instead decided to live her life the way she wanted to, will never be an ordinary story.

Divya Singh, the former captain of the Indian women’s national basketball team, is one such story. At 27, Divya has already turned the stifling ‘good Indian girl’ stereotypes on its head, and instead trailblazed a career for herself in what she loved most: basketball.

Like former men’s captain Trideep Rai, who I interviewed for an article last month, Divya is also from my hometown Varanasi, which has had a reputation of being uniquely illustrious in churning out national-level basketball talents. Her early inspiration to get into the game as an adolescent was her older sister Priyanka, who received notable basketball success herself when she got a chance to play for her state team. “I used to watch my sister play, and hang around her, just dribbling,” Divya says, “That is how it all began.”

In two years, Divya’s casual dribbling drills morphed into serious interest in the game, and at 14, she got her first call-up to the Varanasi District Junior Team. Two years later, she was called up to play for the seniors. She was in her senior year at high school when she got her call-up to represent her state Uttar Pradesh (UP) in the senior nationals.



Although naturally gifted, her journey in basketball wasn’t without its share of hurdles. First and foremost, it was from her own father, a bank manager who was against his daughter’s interest in athletics. “He still feels like I should’ve tried to find a job in something related to administration,” Divya said, “He didn’t understand that I could have a future in sports.” Her mother, Divya admits, fully supported her dreams, and despite the differing worldviews in her family, Divya continued to develop her game towards stardom.

Divya received her first call-up to the Indian national team in 2000. For seven years thereafter, the young Banarasi was a force in women’s basketball in the country. The highlights of her international career included a silver medal in the 20th Asian Basketball Confederation Championship in 2005, gold in the First Phuket International Invitational Basketball Championship in Thailand in 2006, leading the Indian team as captain in the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne (Australia), and finishing at 5th place (India’s highest finish in decades) at the FIBA Asia Championship for Women at Incheon (South Korea) in 2007.

Meanwhile, she continued a stellar career domestically too. After representing UP for a few years, she moved on to play for Delhi from 2002-2007, with whom she won gold in the Senior National Basketball Championships at Hyderabad in 2003 and three silver medals from 2005-2007. While she played for Delhi, she “worked” for the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) as a Telecom Office Assistant. I emphasize on “worked” because, as I had written in my article on Trideep, a lot of successful Indian basketball professionals are signed on to represent a government service with a mock job placement and title, whereas in reality they are expected to focus mostly on basketball. Divya agrees that her placement has been no different.

Divya’s success led the way to her three younger sisters following her path. Prashanti, Akanksha, and Pratima Singh have all represented the Indian national team, making Varanasi Singh family a unique foursome that began to dominate women’s basketball in India. It was to help her sister’s that Divya indulged in her first stint in coaching. She has been coach of St. Stephen’s College (Delhi) and Jesus and Mary College (JMC) Delhi, as well as Manager-Coach for Delhi University.

“My sister used to play in these teams,” she said, “I coached a few tournaments whenever I had the free time to try and help them out.” This early exposure for the youngster was to shape her interest in basketball coaching in the future.



After years of success in her career, she had reached a standstill: Divya stopped and asked herself, “Now what?” 27 is a mighty young age to be having a crisis of purpose; but as Trideep (26) had mentioned earlier, after a certain point, basketball in India leaves their players disillusioned with nothing to offer any more. “I played for the national team and had success in the national tournaments,” Divya says, “But players like us soon realize that there is nowhere else to go from here.” Divya was offered contract with a club in Chile, but the deal broke early, and she didn’t wish to pursue it any further.

It was later in 2007 that another unique opportunity came knocking Divya’s way: from one of the seminars conducted from the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders (BWB) programme, Divya and fellow player Yuvika Sharma were selected by the University of Delaware’s Sports Management Department for its Higher Education Administration Graduate Programme. The programme is a collaboration between the University of Delaware and the Basketball Federation of India (BFI), and Divya, who is getting a Master’s in Educational Leadership and Sports Management there, will return to help the BFI at the end of her course in mid-2010.

“I’m learning stuff like international sports marketing and sports finance here,” she says, “I have plans to come back to India and work for the BFI, helping to promote basketball in India through the right kind of marketing and campaigning.” Aside from her degree, Divya also serves as the assistant coach to the head coach Tina Martin for the University’s senior team, which is in the D1 and is having a good season.

Unfortunately for Divya, she can’t actually play for Martin’s squad, because D1 rules imply that no player who has been paid as a professional can represent a D1 squad. It is not all disappointment for her, since working under the tutelage of Martin has helped Divya hone her own basketball knowledge, which she later wants to share with youth back in India.

“The level of players here is extremely high compared to back home,” Divya adds, “Players are physically tougher, and a lot more skillful. They train in a systematic manner, and have excellent facilities which are at least six or seven times than the facilities that we have back in our camps in India.”



Divya’s playing career seems to have been halted abruptly, a fact that she is resentful about, but realizes that with her knowledge now she could go back and help many more youngsters in India develop their basketball talent. “I didn’t want to leave sports. I love playing the game, but now I feel the right thing to do is to go back and help BFI in making basketball bigger in India.”

One of her dream projects is to be part of the system that ushers in a basketball league in India, similar to the popular Indian Premier League (IPL) for cricket. “In India, sport fans generally focus more on international games than domestic leagues – we need to help and chance that attitude,” she says, “The IPL has been very successful and we need to do something like that for basketball. Such a league will increase the competition level, provide regular games and exposure for players, and will be attractive to the fans.”

“Fans wake up at 4 in the morning to watch NBA games, and nobody knows about our own national championships.”

The league system, unlike the current service-tournament system in India, may not provide lifetime job security, but Divya believes that for the overall growth of the games as well as talent in India, it is better.

“I don’t like cricket very much,” Divya admits, “But I admire the way that it is managed. It’s possible for basketball to grow in India. There is a court in most of the schools in India, and kids play the game regularly at a young age. Their talent needs to be channelized in the right way.”

Her exposure in Delaware has shown Divya what facilities are lacking back home, like proper weight rooms, weight-trainers, dieticians, or scouts to cultivate young talent the right way. “Some of our players have had the natural talent and would’ve been able to make it into American leagues if they were nurtured properly from a young age.”

And it is with these dreams that Divya plans to return to India. “I am undecided on whether I will return to a playing career,” she says, “But I love the game, and I’ve found my calling with administrative work for the BFI in helping promote it the right way, whether through the media or through more camps across Indian schools.”

I don’t know if Divya’s step into administrative duties for the country’s basketball body was a planned career move, but they mark a strange compromise between her own dreams and her father’s. “When my sisters and I began playing the game, it was a passion, not a career,” she says, “We went against our father’s wishes and followed our hearts. That kind of passion needs to be brought back into youngsters playing basketball here.”

For Divya, it was always more than a career… Until it became one! Her story is exemplary to other young girls with dreams that conflict with their family, society, or the potential matrimonial ad. And it is girls like her who follow their dreams and positively redefine the 'good Indian girl'.