Rupesh Shah a winner in 2013 Arjuna Awards

Each year (since 1961) the Indian government makes awards to the people they consider to be the outstanding sportspeople of the year (the award is cash plus a trophy). Following his victories at the IBSF/WPBSA World Billiards Championship (Points Competition Champion) and Asian Billiards Championship, Rupesh Shah is one of 15 Indian sportsmen and women winning awards this year. This is the second year running a cueist has won an award (Aditya Mehta last year), after quite a gap to the previous award in 2005 (to 2005 WLBSA Snooker World Champion Anuja Thakur). Former billiards player Michael Ferreira being the committee chair may be helping!

The top award is the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, won this year by trap shooter Ronjan Sodhi

For the record, other award winners:

Virat Kohli (Cricket),
Chekrovolu Swuro (Archery),
Renjith Maheshwary (Athletics - Triple Jump),
P V Sindhu (Badminton),
Kavita Chahal (Boxing),
Gaganjeet Bhullar (Golf),
Saba Anjum (Hockey),
Rajkumari Rathore (Shooting),
Joshna Chinappa (Squash),
Mouma Das (Table Tennis),
Neha Rathi (Wrestling),
Dharmendra Dalal (Wrestling),
Abhijeet Gupta (Chess)
Amit Kumar Saroha (Para sports)

There's a bit of a fuss going on (particularly in Kerala, but also in the Indian Parliament) about the failure to make an award to volleyball player Tom Joseph.

Chekrovolu Swuro is the first ever Naga to win one of these awards (The Naga live in North East India and North West Burma and speak one of a number of related Tibeto-Burman languages and are culturally pretty different from other peoples in India).