No Khel Ratna for Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid is one of the best players to have ever played the game of cricket. Mister dependable  who protected India on the cricket pitch for 15 long years, has still not been awarded the country's highest sporting honour Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna. Dravid finished as the highest run scorer in Tests for the year 2011, add to that his retirement from the sport early this year and many believe this was the perfect time to give the wall the honour he so richly deserves. Instead, it's being given to Olympic medalists, shooter Vijay Kumar and wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt. The BCCI has now recommended Dravid's name for the Padma Bhushan. Interestingly, Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, the chairperson of the Khel Ratna committee, himself got the award in 2005, a year after his Olympic silver in Athens. Surely then, Vijay and Yogeshwar could've waited as well? And then there are those who have given up after waiting for so long. Like 13-time Grand Slam champion Mahesh Bhupathi. While it's great that 25 athletes are getting the Arjuna this time instead of 15, and 2 are getting Khel Ratna instead of 1, the bigger problem is, how to deal with the problem of backlogs. The idea one gets is of the federations not pushing enough. It is then upto the athlete, to use all kinds of sources to get the job done, like squash player Dipika Pallikal had to do this time around, to assure herself of an Arjuna Award.