By Mohd Ismail Khan, Twocircles.net,
Hyderabad: Well renowned Badminton coach and Dronacharya award winner Syed Mohammad Arif have won this year’s Padma Shri award. Central government recommended his name for the Padma award Wednesday.
He has been coach for the sports authority of India for last 35 years, almost making Fateh Maidan stadium his second home. In 1974, he joined the national panel of coaches for badminton and by 1997 got appointed as the National Chief Badminton Coach. Arif coached several Indian badminton players, including former All England Badminton Champion Pullela Gopichand, former National Badminton champions PVV Lakshmi, Jwala Gutta and Saina Nehwal.
Speaking to journalists at Fateh Maidan he said, “I must thank almighty and all those who helped me for winning this award.” He said this is a special moment and dedicated the award to his family members and all those badminton fraternity for being kind to him. He said the award has doubled his determination to produce a world champion, mean time he took pride of the fact that his coaching was successful in creating 175 national champions in different categories. Besides such mammoth tasks, he is now the advisor for the badminton academy set up by Pullela Gopichand.
This year only three eminent personalities from Andhra Pradesh [AP] state were conferred with the prestigious Padma awards; the others were veteran social worker Dr G Muniratnam Naidu and NRI judge from Germany PC Rao, awarded with the Padma Bhushan. This is the first time in the history of AP that only three were chosen for the Padma awards. Opposition parties have started blaming the state’s lack of political clout at the Centre.