India’s chief national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand was bestowed an honorary doctorate by Indian Institure of Technology, Kanpur, on the occasion of its 52nd convocation.
The coach extraordinaire along with Infosys chairperson Sudha Murthy and Tessy Thomas, director-general of aeronautical systems at the Defence Research and Development Organisation, received this honour from former Indian Space Research Organisation chairman professor K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the board of governors of IIT, Kanpur.
They joined an elite list of receipients including former president professor A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and former prime minister Manmohan Singh.
Gopichand as a player won the 2001 All England Open Badminton Championships, becoming the second Indian after Prakash Padukone to achieve this feat. After retirement, the Hyderabad-based shuttler started his own badminton academy — the Gopichand Badminton Academy — in 2008.
Many top Indian players including Saina Nehwal, P. V. Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap have been trained at Gopichand’s academy in Hyderabad.
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