Archers in India have over the year made their country proud through their achievements at both national and international levels.
According to the new rules by Government of India, archery should be a part of sports curriculum in school, colleges and universities. With greater awareness and understanding of the game, archery has become very popular among the Indian people.
In order to make the game very popular among the people AAI introduced the Indian Round event playing with bamboo bow and arrow in 1993 at Delhi apart from holding regular FITA/Olympic Round Sub-Junior, Junior and Senior level National and State competitions.
The Indian archers tasted major success in the year 1987 during 5th Asian Championship held in Kolkata in the state of West Bengal, where Men`s Team comprising of Limba Ram, Shyamlal and Rajat Haldar won Bronze Medal in Men`s Team event. With the win the Indian win stopped the Korean monopoly in the competition.
New attempts were made to get a chance in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. And again, in spite of performing well in preliminary qualification round, Indian Archers collapsed in the initial 1/32 round. However Lalrem Sanga could reach up to 1/16. The archery team from India comprising Shri Satyadev Prasad, Tarundeep Rai, Vishwas and Majhi Sawaiyan won the Silver Medal in the Olympic Round Team event in the last Asian Archery Championship held from 2nd to 10th November, 2003 in Myanmar. India has a pool of talented archers namely; Mr.Satyadev Prasad, Mr. Robin Hansda, Mr.Goutam Singh, Mr.Viswash, Mr.Tarundeep Rai, Mr.Majhi Sawaiyan, Mr. Harish Kerai, Ms.Chekrovolu Swuro, Ms.Reena Kumari, Mr.Mangal Singh; Ms. Dola Banerjee, Ms.Sumangla, Ms.Bhagyabati Chanu(Seniors) and Mr.Jayanta Talukdar, Ravindar, Rahul Banerjee, Prabhat Kandir, Luxmi Rani Majhi, Sushma, Ranu and Runu Swargiary(Juniors). Each and every one these archers have shown in the past that they are capable of giving best performance at both senior and junior levels.
Dola Banerjee
Dola Banerjee became the first Indian Archer to win an Individual Gold Medal and the Indian Women Team consisting Miss Reena Kumari, Miss Dola Banerjee and Miss Ranu won the Team Silver Medal in the European Grand Prix Archery Tournament held at Antalya, Turkey from 4th to 8th May, 2005.
Jayanta Talukdar
Jayanta Talukdar is an Indian archer. He has won individual gold Medal in the 2006 Archery World Cup.
Rahul Banerjee
Rahul Banerjee is an Indian Olympic archer.
Tarundeep Rai
Tarundeep Rai is hailing from Namchi, Sikkim. He is an Indian archer. He belongs to the Indian Gorkha community.
Deepika Kumari
Deepika Kumari is an Indian athlete who competes in the event of Archery, is currently ranked World No. 5, and is a former world number one.
Bombayla Devi Laishram
Bombayla Devi Laishram is an Indian archer. She has represented India at international events since 2007. Born in Imphal East, Manipur Laishram made her national debut in 1997.
Chekrovolu Swuro
Chekrovolu Swuro is hailing from Phek district in Nagaland. She is an Indian archer. She represented India in archery in the 2002 Asian Games and 2006 Asian Games held at Busan, South Korea and Doha, Qatar respectively.
Limba Ram
Limba Ram is an Indian archer who represented India in international competitions, including three Olympics. He equalled an archery world record in 1992 at the Asian Archery Championships in Beijing. He was awarded the Padma Shri Award in 2012.
Purnima Mahato
Purnima Mahato is an Indian archer and archery coach from Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. She has won the Indian national archery championships and a silver medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games.
Mangal Singh Champia
Mangal Singh Champia is an Indian archer, who won multiple medals in several International events including Asian Games. President of India conferred him with the Arjuna award for the year 2009.
Due to consistent efforts of Archery Association of India, the game has grown leaps and bound, and has been successful in creating a place in the International arena.
