International hockey player from Odisha, Deep Grace Ekka, has been recommended for the Arjuna Award, the second-highest sporting honour of India, by the National Sports Awards Selection Committee. Deep Grace has been playing as a defender in the Indian Women’s Hockey Team for the last several years. So far, she has played 240 hockey matches and was a member of the Indian Women’s Hockey Team that won a bronze medal in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games this year. She also represented the Indian Women’s Hockey Teams that won medals in the 2014 and 2018 Asian Games and was a member of the title-winning Indian Women’s Hockey Teams in the 2016 Women’s Asian Champions Trophy as well as the 2017 Asia Cup Hockey. Currently, she is representing the railways in domestic hockey tournaments. The 12-member committee recommended a total of 25 names, including Birmingham CWG men’s singles badminton champion Lakshya Sen, women’s World boxing champion Nikhat Zareen, Asian Games gold medallist pugilist Amit Panghal, chess prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, women wrestlers Anshu Malik and Sarita Mor and Nayanmoni Saikia, among others.