The future of the Internet?

"You will be nearer to heaven playing football than studying Bhagvad Gita." "The battle of waterloo was won in the fields of Eton" Sound mind rests in sound body."

The renowned facts but not yet translated into reality. Sports have myriad of benefits. Concentration of mind, determination, discipline, punctuality, confidence, optimism, strong will, team work, harmony, sociability, equanimity , geniality, ability to see all through same window are some of the virtues inculcated by sports in an individual.Tamouguna-lethargy and lack of proper understanding, the vices which always move in sync can easily be overcome through sports. One will always hear people whining that they have no time for physical activities in their hectic schedules. But there is no denying the fact that only one hour in a week dedicated to sports will bring wonders to your life be it office or home, you will find your productivity notch elevating.

Failures are the stepping stones to success. One who has not failed has not tried worth achieving. In light of all these facts, failures are rampant of one's life but when one leaves this utopian zone, he will find that in India suicide rate is very high especially amongst youngsters of 15-29 age group as they could not face the failures. Concurrently, the suicide rate is as low as 7.8 per 100000 people in China in comparison to 21.1 that of India. To some extent , it proves that Chinese have stronger will than Indians to fight back and have greater buoyancy in life given to importance assigned to sports in China by their government, 6000 stadiums and considerable number of gymnasiums were opened to inculcate the habit of sports in people. And the results were fruitful, where China won 8 gold medals in Olympic Games 1996 the tally soared to 50 gold medals in 2008 bagging the first position. But in India, besides cricket and tennis we have not been able to won laurels in any other sports field. Such disparity can easily be attributed to the encouragement and resources rendered to cricket and tennis blatantly ignoring other sports. It is national disgrace that our national sport is also in the same league of unheeded sports. To exacerbate the facts, physical education is still not an integral part of our school curriculum. The rote learning can't imbibe virtues like teamwork and harmony in children especially in diversified country like India where sports can be employed as tool to tie the social fabric of the nation. Even if physical education is rendered, the primary focus is on developing champions rather than exhorting all students to play, learn and grow. As a consequence, students who cannot compete feel alienated and thus distance themselves from all sports activities. It can take a toll on their confidence.

Asian games cannot be ignored in this discussion. The number of gold medals won by India in games is abysmally low as compared to that of counterpart China where tally has already reached three digits. The reason for this is well established; one already revealed above and other is our sports committees are not headed by sportspersons but bureaucrats. Isn't it sardonic? It is like math teacher teaching English. Any work if performed by a person well versed in that field be it sports, education, economics, finance etc. brings efficiency and effectiveness. The sportspersons in India don't get much recognition. The apathy towards sports can be inferred from Savita Devi incident as our authorities did not show much interest in helping her get justice. A country of 100 crores has produced only some brilliant sportsperson like Sania Mirza, Yogeshwar Dutt, Mary Kom etc. which is an open testimony to the insignificance ascribed to games in country.

The need of an hour is sports law to ensure the equal and fair promotion of every sport by the government, not just cricket. We need more stadiums, sports faculty at schools, gymnasiums, awareness programmers to aware people about importance of sports, an overhauled curriculum and at top of all the will to implement these measures in red and letter spirit. Let India ascend to heights of glory and success in football fields.

Payal Mittal