The Palk Strait is a strait between the Tamil Nadu state of India and the Jaffna District of the Northern Province of the island nation of Sri Lanka. It connects the Bay of Bengal in the northeast with Palk Bay in the southwest. With a maximum depth of less than 9.1 m, it is 40 to 85 miles wide and 85 miles long. Several rivers flow into it, including the Vaigai River of Tamil Nadu. The strait is named after Robert Palk, who was a governor of Madras (1755–1763) during the Company Raj period.
Mihir Sen was a famous Indian long distance swimmer and lawyer. He was the first Asian to conquer the English Channel from Dover to Calais in 1958, and did so in the fourth fastest time. He was the only man to swim the oceans of the five continents in one calendar year (1966). These included the Palk Strait, Dardanelles, Bosphorus, Gibraltar, and the entire length of the Panama Canal. This unique achievement earned him a place in The Guinness Book of Records as the "world's greatest long distance swimmer".
Arati Saha was an Indian long-distance swimmer. She was best known for becoming the first Asian woman to swim across the English Channel on 29 September 1959 when she was nineteen years old. In 1960, she became the first Indian sportswoman to be awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian honour in India.
Nisha Millet is a swimmer from Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. An Arjuna Award winner, she was the only woman in the 2000 Sydney Olympics swim team for India.
Bula Choudhury is an Indian former swimmer. She is an Arjuna awardee, Padma shri awardee, former India national women's swimming champion and elected as MLA from 2006 to 2011 representing Nandanpur in West Bengal state of India.
V.S. Kumar Anandan was a Guinness World Records holder. His one of many records include Swimming the Palk Strait, from Sri Lanka to India and back in 51 hours, in the year 1971. Once he met with a motor vehicle accident and was hospitalized for six months. While attempting to swim the English Channel on 6 August 1984 he collapsed and died due to heavy currents. Kumar Anandan held the maximum number of Individual Guinness Records at a point in time which included Non-Stop Water treading, Standing on one leg for 33 hours, Non-Stop dancing, Ball punching for 136 hours, etc. He was used to call by his nick name "Aalikkadal Anandan"
Sebastian Xavier is a former Indian swimmer from Kerala.
C. Sylendra Babu is an Indian Police Service Officer who served as the Director General of Police and Head of Police Force, Tamil Nadu Police. He retired on June 30, 2023 and was succeeded by Shankar Jiwal, IPS.
Deepa Malik is an Indian athlete. She started her career at the age of 30. She is the first Indian woman to win a medal in Paralympic Games and won a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in shot put. She also won gold in the F-53/54 Javelin event at the para athletic Grand Prix held in Dubai in 2018. She is currently the world number one in the F-53 category. She has won accolades for her participation in various adventure sports. She is associated with Himalayan Motorsports Association (H.M.A.) and Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India (F.M.S.C.I.). She has undertaken an 8-day, 1,700-km drive in sub-zero temperatures which included a climb to 18,000 feet (5,500 m). It was – Raid De Himalaya. This journey covers many difficult paths including remote Himalayas, Leh, Shimla and Jammu.
Niranjan Mukundan is an Indian para-swimmer. He was crowned as the Junior World Champion in the year 2015.
Bhakti Sharma is an Indian Open water swimmer.
Taranath Narayan Shenoy, is a deaf and visually impaired Indian swimmer and an honoree of the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. He is a winner of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, having successfully completed the English Channel, Catalina Channel and the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian award of Padma Shri in 1990.
Rupali Ramdas Repale, is an Indian open-water long-distance swimmer and triathlete. She swam the English Channel in the solo swim category on 15 August 1994 in a time span of 16 hours and 7 minutes, making her the youngest successful swimmer to cross the English Channel for the year 1994. She swam a total of seven straits during the course of her swimming career, Gibraltar Strait, Palk Strait, Bass Strait, Cook Strait, Robben Island Channel and Mumbai-Dharamtar Channel.
Wing Commander Paramvir Singh is an Indian Air Force officer and Adventure Sports athlete. He is an open-water endurance swimmer with multiple records to his credit, having led expeditions to the English Channel, unexplored channels in the Arabian Sea, one of which broke a world record, and the historic first-ever swim down the entire stretch of the River Ganga. as well as an Ultra Triathlon and Duathlon athlete.
Mohammad Shams Aalam Shaikh is an Indian Para swimmer. He won four gold medals at the Indian Open Para Swimming Championship in 2018, and a bronze medal at the 2016 Can-Am Para Swimming Championships held in Gatineau, Quebec. He also represented India at the World Para Swimming Championship Maderia Portugal 2022 & 2018 Asian Para Games in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is also awarded with the award for best sportsperson with disability by the president of India on 3 December 2021
Madhavi Latha is a para-athletics sportswoman who champions the cause of sports for persons with disabilities. She won three gold medals at the National Paralympic Swimming Championships and is also the founder of the Wheelchair Basketball Federation of India (WBI), India's national wheelchair basketball body. In 2011, she founded the Paralympic Swimming Association of Tamil Nadu, a non-governmental organization (NGO) which focuses primarily on inclusion in sports and the promotion of sports for people with disabilities.
Meenakshi Pahuja is an Indian lecturer and marathon swimmer. After a successful career as a competitive swimmer, she became a teacher at Lady Shri Ram College, and later entered open water swimming. She received a 2018 Nari Shakti Puraskar award.
Prabhat Raju Koli is an Indian open water swimmer based in Mumbai. In 2018, Koli was awarded with the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, which was presented by Ramnath Kovind, the President of India. He was also awarded with Shiv Chhatrapati Award by the Maharashtra government.
Shyamala Goli also referred to as Goli Shyamala is an Indian endurance swimmer, Producer, Creative Director and Writer to the Animation Series and Movies. In March 2021, she became the second Indian woman and second woman in the world after Bhula Chaudhary to have crossed the Palk Strait. She completed the feat at the age of 47.
Roshan Abeysundara is a Sri Lankan airman and swimmer, who also currently holds the Asian record for swimming across the Palk Strait as of April 2021.
