Simarpreet Singh and Tariq Ahmed from Hyderabad who have been selected to represent India in the World Cup football for Homeless to be played in Chile this October. PHOTO: V. V. Subrahmanyam / The Hindu
Soccer fever is reaching a climax in Brazil. But for two young footballers, Tariq and Simarpreet Singh from the city, it might just be the beginning of a journey to recognition. The two boys have been selected to represent India in the Homeless World Cup (for those who come from slums) in Chile in October.
“A World Cup is a World Cup. We are on cloud nine,” the delighted duo exclaimed. They are products of ‘Sports Coaching Foundation’ football camp where Hyderabad Sporting Club chief coach Mohd Saleh trains.
“This is a dream come true and we will try our best to make an impact in this event,” say the soccer duo. Nineteen-year-old Tariq is an engineering graduate from Hussaini Alam and Simarpreet is a commerce graduate from Zaranagar locality of Mehdipatnam. “This is nowhere near the real World Cup soccer but this is a sport that is played with great passion,” the duo says.
“These boys would not have made it to Chile but for the initiative of Kaarmic Education Services’ Dantu Kartik and Adithya Sanjay of Awakening Foundation who spotted talent and started grooming them. I am glad that Tariq and Simarpreet are from the SCF where they have been training under lights,” says a proud K. Sai Baba, general secretary of SCF.
SCF felicitated the duo.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by V. V. Subrahmanyam / Hyderabad – July 12th, 2014
P Leela Sagar leading the Optimist Nationals in progress at the Deloittte Monsoon Regatta 2014 on Friday, organised by Yacht Club of Hyderabad. Photo: By Arrangement
A group of youngsters from modest financial background, many of whom orphans, are literally making waves and earning a reputation of being fine sailors from Hyderabad. About 15 such youngsters, supported by The Yacht Club, Secunderabad, have started to make a mark by stringing together notable performances in the country’s sailing circuit.
On Friday, a youngster from this group, a class eight student, Leela Sagar, performed exceptionally on the fourth day of the ‘Monsoon Regatta’ being held in Hussain Sagar in the Opti National category. Often described by experts as a sailor with great promise, Sagar has already sailed in many cities, including Mumbai, Cochin and Chennai.
The remaining 14 youngsters in the group include Rajanikanth, Nikhil, Prabhakar, Nagarjuna, Bharath, Vishnu, Praveen Kumar, Shivram, Raju, Prasad, Srikanth, Saibaba and Lokesh. “We give infrastructure support to these children. All of them are from humble background and many have lost their parents, but they have determination to get noticed in the sport,” says founder, The Yacht Club, Suheim Sheikh.
Among the top performers is Nikhil Kumar, who recently attended a coaching camp held by Marek Nostitz Kackowski, who coached Hong Kong Olympic team for Sydney and Athens in 2000 and 2004. Another young performer is Ragi Rajanikanth, who came third in Toppers’ National and also won bronze medal on Thursday in the ongoing Monsoon Regatta, 2014.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Staff Reporter / Hyderabad – July 05th, 2014
Guess why people didn’t want Mirza to play tennis growing up? Ans: TanSania Mirza. Photo: Chris Hyde/ Getty Images
Babyjaan’s dear friend got into the car and they began their typical chatter.
I’m wearing pink tights, even I’m wearing pink tights; my T-shirt is nice it has Dora. My T-shirt is also nice it has a picture of a rainbow. You like my shoes? Do you like my shoes? They’re shiny. You washed your shoes? Even I washed my shoes.
And then, bam, without warning, her beautiful friend, always a calming, extremely sensible influence on my rowdy livewire of a daughter, held up her arm to Babyjaan’s and said: My skin is lighter than yours.
I always knew I would have to give Babyjaan the Dark is Beautiful pep talk. Our obsession with skin colour is so pervasive and so predictable it almost makes me yawn. Babyjaan’s faced it on the playground forever, except she doesn’t know it yet. Example: Your daughter’s so pretty (compliment to fair girl). Your daughter has beautiful hair (compliment to Babyjaan).
I’m not worried. I’ll just add it to the list of monsters she needs to know she will encounter in The Indian Girl’s Battle to Grow Up Sane. Note to self: Figure out a way to link it to Maleficent, her current favourite bad girl.
Thankfully, Babyjaan gets comebacks. At 3 I had coached her to respond to idiotic children who say “Your mama’s got funny hair”, referring to my uncoloured, more salt less pepper, more frizz less curls, with traces of gold. My well-trained bot simply replies: “Her hair is interesting. It’s cool, not boring (like your mama’s).” Ok, strike the brackets.
In fact, I had already planned a couple of rejoinders for this dark skin thing. She could say: “That’s because I have more melanin than you, go look it up.” And “Colourism is racism, surely you know that? Or hasn’t your vocabulary gone past four-letter words like dark and fair?”
But I must confess that every Girl Boss who talks about this issue gives me some measure of relief, and revives the belief that we are all in this battle together and that we will eventually wrest back our Right to Colour from the uppity fair and lovelies.
This week’s hero was Sania Mirza for me and Babyjaan (though she doesn’t yet know it). Mirza told reporters that one of the earliest obstacles she faced on her journey to become an international tennis champ was colour prejudice. So many people advised Mirza’s parents not to enrol her in tennis classes because she would __ (that three-letter word most feared and dreaded among parents of girls in India. Ans: Tan). This in turn would affect Mirza’s marriage prospects, never mind that she was then only a couple of years older than Babyjaan.
The international media obliged by retelling stories about India’s disgusting skin colour hang-ups; the national media buried the news on the sports page (even sports fans don’t read the sports pages these days, they are too busy watching Wimbledon and the World Cup). A woman talking about prejudice is hardly newsworthy here, right?
But don’t mind that you didn’t make it to page 1 Sania Mirza. Keep sharing and thank you so much. I think it’s time to introduce Babyjaan and her friend to your growing-up battles.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint & The Wall Street Journal / Home> Leisure> First Cut / by Priya Ramani / Saturday – July 05th, 2014
Swimmers from Hyderabad put up a creditable performance winning four gold, 11 silver and seven bronze in the National Life-saving Pool Championship–cum-training with focus on life-saving techniques in Pune, according to a media release here. The swimmers were initially given training in different forms of life-saving techniques. They were also taught how to respond to crisis calls.
For the 14 swimmers from the city, trained at the SAAP swimming pool at Police Control Room here, it was an experience to remember. “It is a creditable performance given the fact that this was the first exposure trip for all the Hyderabadis who actually joined the pool here as a recreation sport initially,” says coach Hajira Abbasi.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Special Correspondent / Hyderabad – July 03rd, 2014
Kushagra Mohan of Hyderabad who won the silver medal in the under-10 category of the Asian Youth chess championship in Tashkent. / by Arrangement / The Hindu
Kushagra Mohan clinches silver medal in the Asian Youth Chess Championship in Tashkent.
Kushagra Mohan, a fifth standard student of Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet, provided a silver lining when he clinched the silver medal in the just-concluded Asian Youth Chess Championship in Tashkent (Uzbekistan).
The city boy won the medal in the under-10 category representing India, which incidentally is his second after his bronze in the same event last year. Coached by Rama Raju, Kushagra, who is a Candidates Master now, is already dreaming big and his next big event is the World Youth Chess Championship in Durban (South Africa) this September.
“My confidence level is high after the Tashkent silver. I hope to keep improving,” he said. Ever since his bronze in the 2011 national under-seven championship in Pune, Kushagra has been making a slow and steady progress which was evident when he won the Asian Schools Championship silver the same year.
With father Rajesh Mohan, a businessman, and mother Meena encouraging him to the hilt, Kushagra, who idolises the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen, is in the mood to script a few more success stories in the world of chess.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Special Correspondent / Hyderabad – July 02nd, 2014
The sixth-seeded Indian, who had won the India Open Super Series earlier this year, prevailed 21-18 21-11 in a 43-minute contest against Spain’s Carolina Marin.
Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal produced a dominating performance to lift her second title of the season, winning the $750,000 Star Australian Super Series after beating Spain’s Carolina Marin in the summit clash in Sydney on Sunday.
The sixth-seeded Indian, who had won the India Open Super Series earlier this year, prevailed 21-18 21-11 in a 43-minute contest which made her richer by $56,000.
The 24-year-old Saina, who enjoyed a 1-0 head-to-head record against Marin going into Sunday’s match, logged the first point and displayed some deft net play against her rival, stroking in some delectably timed volleys to take a 5-2 lead in the opening game.
But the 21-year-old Marin was not the one to give up easily and showed just why she is considered one of the most feisty players on the circuit. She narrowed the gap to 6-8 but seemed distinctly out of her comfort zone every time Saina dragged her towards the net.
Also, Marin didn’t help her cause by committing a service error to gift an easy point to Saina, who went into the interval leading 11-7 after an intriguing rally which ended with the Spaniard smashing the shuttle wide.
Marin raised her game and the decibel levels after the break but Saina was quick to counter-attack and returned her rival’s attempted smashes with quiet intensity.
In between, Marin played some fine strokes but they never came consistently enough as Saina made it 17-12. Marin’s dogged determination was there to be seen in every point she played for but that alone was never going to be enough to upstage a composed Saina.
The Indian, who didn’t seem affected at all by Marin’s aggressive outpouring of emotions after every claimed point, sealed the opening game 21-18 after her world number 11 rival smashed one into the net 23 minutes into the match.
In the second game, Marin’s determination helped her take a 3-1 lead to start with but it was not too long before Saina came back into the fray, this time on the back of some well-placed strokes from the baseline.
Perhaps taking a cue from Marin, Saina too let some emotion show as she clenched her fist and shouted ‘come on’ after every clinched point. But one of her screams came about in the middle of a rally, prompting Marin to complain to the chair umpire, who merely asked her to continue.
The distraction didn’t do any good to Marin as Saina raced to a 11-4 lead against the Spaniard, who looked to be in disarray.
After the interval, Saina kept up the pressure, regularly inducing errors from Marin, who struggled to maintain the intensity she displayed in the opening game.
Dominating the proceedings, Saina produced some of her trademark smashes to further demoralise her rival, whose shoulders had dropped by that stage.
But there was to be some moments of drama before the win came about.
Leading 19-9, Saina challenged a line call that went against her but replays showed that the shuttle had in fact landed wide. The Indian made another mistake while playing the very next point as she buried an attempted smash into the net.
But Saina made amends quite quickly and clinched the title after Marin lobbed a shuttle wide.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport> Other Sports / PTI / Sydney – June 29th, 2014
Swimmers from different age groups from Hyderabad who won medals in the recently-held National life-saving pool championship in Pune. PHOTO: By Arrangement / The Hindu
Swimmers from Hyderabad put up a creditable performance winning four gold, 11 silver and seven bronze at the National Life-saving Pool Championship-cum-training in Pune. The camp’s focus was on life-saving techniques, a media release said.
The young talent, in the age group of 12-17 years, were initially given training in the different forms of saving lives in water. The swimmers were also taught how to respond to crisis calls, with focus on the recent Beas tragedy in which some college students from the city were washed away due to the sudden release of water from a dam.
For the 14 swimmers from the city, who had trained at the SAAP swimming pool here, it was an experience to remember.
“It is a creditable performance given that this was the first-ever exposure for the children, who had initially joined the pool at the Police Control Room solely for recreation. We hope to keep improving in the days to come, given the abundance of talent,” says coach Hajira Abbasi.
“It is a unique event wherein the skills of young talent are not only put to test, but in the process, they are made aware of their social obligation: that of helping the needy in the waters,” says the coach.
A major landmark of the city is set to disappear soon with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government firming up plans to turn the iconic Hyderabad Race Club into an education hub.
Leading into the elections, TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao, promised a slew of sops to boost education, and one idea, which startled educationists, was turning the 100-year-old iconic race course into an education hub.
After he assumed power, the education department has been entrusted the task of preparing a blueprint for establishing 150 educational institutions in and around the sprawling Malakpet race course. These institutes will offer post-graduate courses in various subjects, specialize in research and development, it is learnt.
In fact, a similar proposal to create an educational hub by the then Congress chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, was shelved in 2008 after vehement opposition from the race course authorities, backed by political parties.
Now the higher education department has pulled out the old blueprint and is re-working it with renewed zeal and giving it proper shape, at the behest of the state government.
The government’s plan is to build about 150 higher education institutes on 500 acres of land, which includes the race course and also the Chanchalguda jail.
When asked about the plan, G Jagadish Reddy, minister for higher education said that the manifesto will be implemented at any cost.
“We will implement the manifesto at any cost. The hub will come up and the modalities will be discussed soon,” the minister said.
As per the plan, the whole concept is at the formative stage and the government has plans to rope in several stakeholders and finalise the mega project. Education department officials said companies like Wipro and Infosys, among others will be roped in for the project.
Educationists are privately criticising the move saying Telangana already has plenty of quality educational institutions, including IIT-Hyderabad, National Institute of Technology in Warangal and Indian School of Business among others.
“Educational hub is a good concept, but establishing it by destroying an iconic landmark is definitely a bad idea. There is a plenty of open land where the government can set up such institutions, why here?” questioned a former vice-chancellor, who did not wish to be named.
Incidentally, the present race course in Malakpet was shifted from Secunderabad a century ago as the British government wanted it closer to the city and now thanks to Telangana chief minister K Chandrshekar Rao, it is all set to move out of the city again.
The race course and the Chanchalguda jail are part of a sprawling 2,000 acres of land, which the new government has been eyeing. In fact, the chief minister said clearly that his government would not allow such prime land to be wasted on racing and wanted the jail to be shifted out of the city, but has not specified where.
The 2008 plan envisaged a smaller project where only part of the race course would have been affected, officials in the know of things said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Hyderabad / by Nikhila Henry, TNN / June 20th, 2014
Manish Pandey, an amputee, bagged two medals for India at the Tunisia Grand PrixManish Pandey
When Manish Pandey lost his right leg in a train accident in 2011, little did he think that he’d one day be competing in the international sports circuit. But the 22-year-old is doing just that. Manish, who represents Hyderabad, bagged two medals for India in his maiden appearance on the international circuit at the IPC Athletics Grand Prix in Tunisia.
Manish, who now has his sights set on the Asian Paralympics to be held in South Korea in October, qualified to compete in the T-44 category and went on to bag the silver medal in the 200 meter sprint on June 16 and bronze in the 100 meter two days later. “This was my first international competition and I’m happy with the results. It has helped me qualify for the Asian Paralympics to be held in October,” he says.
Four years back when Manish was returning home after writing an exam, he got pushed out of the train. “I remember it was the World Cup finals that day and I wanted to watch the match so I chose to go by local train to reach earlier. It was crowded and I accidentally got pushed out of the train, which ran over my leg. However, I didn’t want this to stop me. I had always actively participated in sports. So I began to focus on creating a career in sports,” he says.
But with no clue about how to go about things, Manish went to Bangalore in 2012 for trials where he met Ratan Singh, a member of the Paralympics Committee. “He shared tips with me and told me that while I had the talent, I needed a blade to be able to run. However, this prosthetic costs around Rs. 3 or 4 lakh. Finally, towards the end of 2013 I was approached by Mohana Gandhi of Dakshin Rehab; he offered to help me. Ever since, I have been in the city, practising and representing it in competitions,” says Manish.
While he is supported by the foundation, he says that there is no government funding for them. “For the Tunisia Paralympics I needed Rs. 1.5 lakh and I borrowed from family and friends to be able to participate. Dakshin Rehab also supported me. This lack of funding also means that I cannot afford to have anybody to monitor my training or diet. I take tips from peers and by watching athletes by like Oscar Pistorius and Usain Bolt,” he says, adding that he trains for two hours every morning in the gym and another two hours at the stadium every evening.
Manish, who hopes to bag a gold at the 2016 Paralympics, says that he hopes to find a sponsor. Until then the athlete, who has made Hyderabad his home, says, “It is the perfect place for me. I busy with practice. My parents continue to live in Chhattisgarh, but I have some cousins here so I feel quite at home.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / June 28th, 2014
The Hyderabad District Badminton Association (HDBA) will conduct a tournament for boys, girls under-13, 15, 17 and 19 years of age, men, women and veterans over 45 and 55 years at the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy indoor stadium, Yusufguda from June 27 to 29.
Those selected from this event will represent the district in this year’s Telangana championships.
Besides registration costing Rs. 100, there will be entry fees of Rs. 200 for each player in singles and Rs. 400 for doubles. Date of birth certificates/proof of age is mandatory for all players except those registered with the Badminton Association of India (BAI).
Entries may be sent to G. Vijayaraghavan, Organising Secretary, HDBA, who may be contacted on mobile no: 9246280256 or K. Pani Rao, Secretary, HDBA on 9440065604. The said tournament will be inaugurated on Friday at 9 a.m.
Emphatic win for
West Godavari
West Godavari scored an emphatic 10-wicket victory over Guntur in the ACA under-19 women’s inter-district tournament at Guntur on Wednesday.
The scores: Guntur 106 for six in 25 overs (Ch. Jhansi Lakshmi 45 n.o.) lost to West Godavari 107 for no loss in 19.4 overs (K. Hepsiba 61).
Prakasam 52 in 24.5 overs ((K. Dhathri three for five) lost to Krishna 53 for one in 5.2 overs.
Big win for Kurnool
Kurnool defeated Nellore by 206 runs in the ACA under-19 inter-district tournament for Plate Group at Vizianagaram on Wednesday.
The scores:
At Vizianagaram: Nellore 116 and 174 in 58.1 overs (Nivrit Ram 75, Veerender Singh five for 40) lost to Kurnool 506 for eight in 120 overs.
Srikakulam 144 and 260 for nine decl. 63.4 overs (Rakesh Augustine 83) drew with Krishna 146 and 199 for six in 68 overs (E. Koutilya 46, M. Praneeth 40).
At Vijayawada:
Vizag 400 for six decl. and 210 for seven in 50 overs (Dheeraj Laxman 69, R. Atchutrao 27, V. Ch. Sandeep 28) drew with Chittoor 148.
At Ongole:
Kadapa 154 and 275 bt Prakasam 62 and 123 in 40.3 overs (Kranthi Kumar 55, S.M.D. Rafi five for 51, Hari Kumar Reddy four for 27).
At Perecherla: Guntur 313 and 181 for six decl in 29 overs (K. Maheep Kumar 76, P. Akhil 24, G.V.V. Tarun Kumar four for 36) drew with East Godavari 200 and 155 for five in 55 overs (S. Yudish 73 n.o, Gopinath three for 34).
At Vizag:
Anantapur 313 and 259 for six decl. in 59 overs (P. Ranjit Reddy 112, M. Raja Sekhar 104, U.A.V. Varma- 3 for 63) drew with West Godavari 201 and 120 for no loss in 26 overs (U.A.V. Varma 55 n.o., B.H. Mounish Varma 51 n.o).
Cricket tournament
As many as 32 teams from all over Anantapur District will take part in the annual RDT rural cricket tournament which begins on June 26 at Anantapur.
The event, held for the 15th year in a row, will be held in three grounds.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport / Hyderabad – June 26th, 2014
