KT Irfan first Indian athlete to qualify for Tokyo 2020

Agencies
March 17, 2019

New Delhi, Mar 17: National record holder KT Irfan Sunday became the first Indian from athletics to qualify for the next year's Olympics while finishing fourth in the 20 km event of the Asian Race Walking Championships in Nomi, Japan.

The 29-year-old Irfan clocked 1 hour 20 minutes and 57 seconds to better the Tokyo Olympics qualification standard of 1 hour 21 minutes.

The Olympics qualification period for race walk events and marathon race has begun from January 1 this year and will run till May 31, 2020. The Olympics qualification period for all other athletics events will start from May 1 this year and will run till June 29, 2020.

No other Indian from athletics has so far qualified for Tokyo Olympics.

Irfan, who has a personal best as well as national record of 1:20:21 which he did during his 10th place finish in 2012 Olympics, also qualified for this year's World Championships (September 27-October 6) in Doha, Qatar as he bettered the qualifying mark of 1:22:30.

The Kerala race walker had won the 20 km event in the National Open Race Walk Championships in Chennai last month with a time of 1:26:18.

He was one of the two Indian athletes who were expelled from the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games for not adhering to the 'no needle policy' of the Games. He was disqualified in the 20 km race walk event of the 2018 Asian Games after receiving his third warning for "loss of contact".

Japan's Toshikazu Yamanishi won the 20 km race walk event with an impressive time of 1:17:15 while Kazakhstan's Georgiy Sheiko and Korea's Byeongkwang Choe were second and third in 1:20:21 and 1:20:40 respectively.

The Asian and World record in men's 20 km race walk stands in the name of Japanese Yusuke Suzuki who clocked 1:16:36 in the 2015 edition of the same championships in Nomi.

Two other Indians, Devinder Singh and Ganapathi Krishnan also qualified for the World Championships as they clocked 1:21:22 and 1:22:12 respectively. They had finished second and fifth in the Chennai National Race Walk Championships with timings of 1:26:19 and 1:26:43.

In the women's 20 km race walk event, Soumya Baby finished fourth with a timing of 1:36:08, well outside Olympics qualifying standard of 1:31:00 and World Championships qualifying standard of 1:33:30.

Comments

kumar
 - 
Monday, 18 Mar 2019

All the best dear Irfan.  May God bless u iwth victory in the olympic game.

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Agencies
August 2,2020

New Delhi, Aug 2: BCCI president Sourav Ganguly on Sunday said the Women's IPL or the Challenger series, as it is better known, is "very much on", ending speculation about the parent body not having a plan for Harmanpreet Kaur and her team.

The men's IPL will be held between September 19 and November 8 or 10 (final date yet to be locked in) in the UAE due to the surge in Covid-19 cases in India. The women's IPL will also be fit in to the schedule, according to the BCCI chief.

"I can confirm to you that the women's IPL is very much on and we do have a plan in place for the national team also," Ganguly told PTI ahead of the IPL Governing Council meeting later on Sunday.

The BCCI president, who is awaiting a Supreme Court verdict on waiver of the cooling-off period to continue in the position, did not divulge details but another senior official privy to the development said that women's Challenger will be held during the last phase of IPL like last year.

"The women's Challenger series is likely to be held between November 1-10 and there could be a camp before that," the source said.

The former India captain also said that the centrally contracted women players will have a camp which has been delayed due to the prevailing situation in the country.

"We couldn't have exposed any of our cricketers -- be it male or female to health risk. It would have been dangerous," Ganguly said.

"The NCA also remained shut because of Covid-19. But we have a plan in place and we will have a camp for women, I can tell you that," he added.

The BCCI's cricket operations team is chalking up a schedule where Indian women are likely to have two full-fledged white-ball series against South Africa and the West Indies before playing the ODI World Cup in New Zealand. 

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News Network
February 16,2020

New Delhi, Feb 16: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday said everyone is unhappy in the society and constantly agitating notwithstanding a "many-fold rise" in materialistic comforts and pleasures.

Addressing a gathering of Sangh workers and intellectuals here in Gujarat, Mr Bhagwat also said that even political parties who are not in power are also agitating.

"Inspite of increase in comforts and materialistic pleasures, everyone is unhappy and is staging agitations. Be it owner or servant, a party in opposition, the common man students, teachers, everyone is unhappy and dissatisfied," the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief said.

He was speaking on the topic "India's Role in the Present World Context".

Mr Bhagwat further said that bigotry, violence and terrorism are on the rise in the present world.

"India has to give 'dharma'  (wisdom) to the world so that knowledge spreads but humans do not become robotic. We have always talked about the concept of global family but not global market," he said.

The lecture was organised by "Madhav Smruti Nyas", an organisation backed by the RSS.

"To think that we are living in a better world is a half truth. Facilities are not evenly distributed. Rule of Jungle is prevailing. A capable person is crushing the weak to climb up. Knowledge is used more for the destruction of the world," the Sangh chief said.

Mr Bhagwat said people are also misusing social media by spreading "false information" to create controversies.

He also stated that trying to put "everyone into one uniform" is also a form of bigotry.

"US and Russia are super powers. China would become a super power too. Now, what super power nations did to others? They just took control of other countries for their own selfish agenda. These super powers gave it back only when they were asked to do so. Otherwise, they never gave anything to others," said Mr Bhagwat.

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News Network
March 13,2020

New Delhi, Mar 13: Delhi's Tis Hazari Court on Friday sentenced expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar and six others to 10 years imprisonment for the death of Unnao rape survivor's father. Sengar is already serving life imprisonment for raping the minor.

While sentencing them, District Judge Dharmesh Sharma said, "There can be no denying that rule of law was broken. Sengar was a public functionary and had to maintain the rule of law. The way the crime has been committed, it does not call for leniency."

Sengar and his brother Atul has been directed to give 10 lakh compensation to family of the victim for loss of their father. "There are four minor children involved, three girls and one boy. They have also been uprooted from native place," the judge said.

Seven people, including Sengar, his brother and two police personnel, were held guilty for culpable homicide and criminal conspiracy, earlier this month.

The case pertains to the death of rape survivor's father in custody on April 9, 2018. It was alleged that he was assaulted following a quarrel with some of the accused in the case.

He was taken to the police station and then framed for allegedly possessing an illegal firearm. Pursuant to this, he was sent to custodial remand, during which he died.

The case was transferred to Delhi from a trial court in Uttar Pradesh on the Supreme Court's directions in August last year. Both the death and illegal firearm case was later clubbed by the court.

During the arguments on sentencing on March 12, Sengar had told the court that he should be "hanged and acid poured into his eyes if he has done anything wrong".

The former MLA had also raped the daughter of the deceased in 2017 in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district and was sent to jail for "remainder of his natural biological life", last year.

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