Para athlete Deepa Malik, who has been awarded Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award 2019, belongs to the sport

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, Shot put. Deepa Malik is a para athlete in track and field, and the achievement that defines her career is the silver medal she won in the women's shot put F53 event at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games — the first Paralympic medal ever won by an Indian woman. That is the performance behind the honour named in the question: the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award for 2019, India's highest sporting honour, which she shared with wrestler Bajrang Punia, making her the first female para-athlete to receive it. As of the December 2019 exam the award still carried Rajiv Gandhi's name; in August 2021 it was renamed the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, so a present-day question will use the new name for the same award.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Wrong discipline entirely. Deepa Malik competes in athletics (track and field), not in a racquet sport. India's para-badminton names became household ones only after the Tokyo Games, well after this exam, and none of them is Deepa Malik.  (b) Right family, wrong event — and that is exactly why this is the best-built distractor in the set. Para athletics groups shot put, discus and javelin together as seated and standing throwing events, so a candidate who has stored only 'throwing event' against her name can land here. The medal that made her career, and the event she is identified with, is the shot put (class F53).  (d) Para powerlifting — the bench-press discipline in the Paralympic programme — is a separate sport from athletics, with its own classification system and its own athletes. Deepa Malik has never competed in it; the option trades on a vague association between 'strength event' and the shot put.

Concept: The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, instituted in 1991-92, is India's highest sporting honour and is given for the most outstanding performance by a sportsperson over the preceding four-year period — which is why it usually follows an Olympic or Paralympic cycle. In August 2021 the award was renamed the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. It sits at the top of a ladder of national sports awards: the Arjuna Award for consistent outstanding performance, the Dronacharya Award for coaches, the Dhyan Chand Award for lifetime achievement, and the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar for institutions that promote sport. Para athletics uses a letter-and-number classification — F for field events, followed by a number band indicating the type and degree of impairment — so 'shot put F53' names both the event and the athlete's class.

State PCS 2019 Q83 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q83 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer