Pankaj Advani and Ajay Maken slam government for awarding Khel Ratna to Sania Mirza

September 2, 2015

New Delhi, Sep 2: Pankaj Advani and Ajay Maken on Tuesday have slammed the government for reducing the Rajiv Khel Ratna to a mere 'popular' award, getting "swayed" by the hype created around Sania Mirza's achievements and conferring it to her.

saniaSania was conferred the award on August 29 at the Rashtrapati Bhavan despite a Karnataka High Court notice on the petition filed by Paralympian HN Girisha, who challenged the decision of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and Arjuna awards selection committee.

"When we talk about sports in India, we get carried away by the hype generated around a sport. You cannot be swayed by the popularity of a particular sport or a sportsperson. I think when it comes to government awards, let's treat every sporting achievement in a pure way. There are a lot of sportspersons who are not that popular and, because of that reason, it's like a more popular sportsperson getting the bigger award," Advani, 13-time world billiards and snooker champion, said here.

It must be mentioned here that Girisha has argued that he accounted for 90 marks (70 for London Paralympics silver medal and 20 for Incheon Asian Games bronze) during the award computation period from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2014, while Sania's WTA titles and Wimbledon doubles victory do not count as per the government's performance-based points system.

Also, it was not Sania but the sports ministry that had forwarded her application for the Khel Ratna to the selection committee only after her Wimbledon doubles crown with Martina Hingis.

Maken, former sports minister, concurred that sports awards are losing their sheen because of the controversies surrounding them. "In order to see that such controversies do not happen, the chairperson and the members of these awards committees should be non-partisan people. That's why I made Olympian Rajyavardhan Rathore chairperson of the awards selection committee. I never cared about the political dealings during my tenure. And, he did a commendable job that time. There was not even a single sifarish (recommendation) from my side at least as a sports minister unlike these days," observed Maken.

The 12-member committee was headed by retired chief justice of the Kerala High Court, Justice VK Bali and included three senior journalists.

"I believe there's less weightage for team events, and then you have Sania getting the Khel Ratna for being the doubles world No. 1 which is a team effort. If I talk about the cue sports, our multiple-time national champion and 2013 World Championship gold medallist Vidya Pillai had applied for the Arjuna, but her achievements were not even considered. Why is there discrimination when it comes to selecting people for awards or making policies?" asked the 30-year-old Bengaluru-based cueist, Advani, who recently defended his World 6-Red snooker title in Pakistan.

"When I got the Khel Ratna and Arjuna, the point system was extremely fair. But today, I can't put my hand on the heart and say that the entire system is transparent. We hear cases of lobbying, favouritism and people using their influence. I mean we are talking about sport and let's keep the selection fair," added Advani.

Both Maken and Advani were of the opinion that more and more former sportspersons who have no conflict of interest and are extremely fair should be made part of such award committees.

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News Network
March 23,2020

Colombo, Mar 23: Sri Lankan batting great Kumar Sangakkara has said he is currently in self-quarantine, following his government's guidelines for those recently returning from Europe, which has now become the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authorities are concerned over people returning from the most-affected COVID-19 countries in Europe not registering with the police and practising isolation.

"I have no symptoms or anything like that, but I'm following government guidelines," Sangakkara told News First.

"I arrived from London over a week ago and the first thing was there was a news bulletin saying that anyone who had travelled from within March 1 to 15 should register themselves with the police and undergo self-quarantine. I registered myself with the police."

The former captain said this even as the government confirmed there have been at least three cases of recent returnees attempting to hide the novel coronavirus symptoms from authorities.

Both Sangakkara and his former teammate Mahela Jayawardene have been active on social media, urging Sri Lankans to avoid panic and to exercise proper social distancing, as the country went into curfew on Friday evening.

Sri Lanka has so far reported more than 80 active COVID-19 positive cases in the country.

Across the world, the number of infected has crossed three lakh besides a death toll of more than 14,000 people.

Meanwhile, former Australia pacer Jason Gillespie has also gone into a two-week isolation after returning from the United Kingdom.

Gillespie, who is the head coach at Sussex, had been in Cape Town with the team for a pre-season tour, which was cut short as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Agencies
January 6,2020

Washington D.C., Jan 6: 'The Irishman,' and 'Two Popes' were shut out from the winners list despite getting multiple nominations, the movies didn't win a single award at the Golden Globes Award held on Sunday (local time). Other movies in the list include 'Bombshell,' 'Dolemite Is My Name,' 'Harriet,' 'Jojo Rabbit,' 'Knives Out' and 'Little Women.'

According to The Hollywood Reporter, 'The Irishman' may have gone into the 2020 Golden Globes with the second-highest number of film nominations, tied with 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' with five nods, but Martin Scorsese's highly anticipated mob epic for Netflix was completely shut out at the award ceremony.

Netflix landed the most film nominations of any company with 17 mentions, but it won only one award which is the best-supporting actress for 'Marriage Story's' Laura Dern. Netflix's nominated films 'Dolemite Is My Name' and 'The Two Popes' was tied with 'Joker' with four mentions each and failed to grab any awards.

'Dolemite Is My Name' star Eddie Murphy was expected by a number of pundits to win for best actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy.

'Bombshell', 'Harriet',' Frozen 2', 'Jojo Rabbit', 'Knives Out', 'The Lion King', 'Little Women' and 'Pain and Glory' are among the other films that received multiple nominations but didn't win a single award.

On the TV side, Netflix's 'Unbelievable' tied in the race to most small-screen nominations with 'Chernobyl' and 'The Crown' with four nominations, and 'The Crown' won only one award, for star Olivia Colman.

The three-time nominees 'Barry', 'Big Little Lies', 'The Kominsky Method' and 'The Morning Show' also didn't grab any award. 'Catch-22', 'Killing Eve', 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and 'The Politician' who were two-time nominees that were also iced out.

'Hustlers' star Jennifer Lopez failed to take home the best-supporting actress award as she was predicted to win the award by a number of pundits. Billy porter also failed to make history with the best drama actor win for his role on 'Pose,' if he would've won the award, he reportedly would have been the first openly gay African-American to win that award.

'Chernobyl' won two of its four nominations. Despite that, star Jared Harris didn't win the best actor in a limited series Globe which was predicted by many prognosticators. The award was bagged by Russell Crowe for his portrayal of Roger Ailes in 'The Loudest Voice.' But the star was absent from the ceremony.

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Agencies
April 14,2020

Tokyo, Apr 14: Tokyo organizers said Tuesday they have no B Plan in the event the Olympics need to be postponed again because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Masa Takaya, the spokesman for the Tokyo Olympics, said organizers are proceeding under the assumption the Olympics will open on July 23, 2021. The Paralympics follow on Aug. 24.

Those dates were set last month by the International Olympic Committee and Japanese officials after the coronavirus pandemic made it clear the Olympics could not be held as scheduled this summer.

We are working toward the new goal, Takaya said, speaking in English on a teleconference call with journalists.

We don't have a B Plan. The severity of the pandemic and the death toll has raised questions if it will even be feasible to hold the Olympics in just over 15 months. Several Japanese journalists raised the question on the call.

All I can tell you today is that the new games' dates for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been just set up, Takaya said.

In that respect, Tokyo 2020 and all concerned parties now are doing their very best effort to deliver the games next year." IOC President Thomas Bach was asked about the possibility of a postponement in an interview published in the German newspaper Die Welt on Sunday.

He did not answer the question directly, but said later that Japanese organizers and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe indicated they could not manage a postponement beyond next summer at the lastest.

The Olympics draw 11,000 athletes and 4,400 Paralympic athletes and large support staffs from 206 national Olympic committees.

There are also questions about frozen travel, rebooking hotels, cramming fans into stadiums and arenas, securing venues, and the massive costs of rescheduling, which is estimated in Japan at 2 billion- 6 billion.

Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto addressed the issue in a news conference on Friday. He is likely to be asked about it again on Thursday when local organizers and the IOC hold a teleconferene with media in Japan.

The other major question is the cost of the delay; how much will it be, and who pays? Bach said in the Sunday interview that the IOC would incur several hundred million dollars in added costs. Under the so-called Host City Agreement, Japan is liable for the vast majority of the expenses.

This is impossible to say for now, Takaya, the spokesman said.

It is not very easy to estimate the exact amount of the games' additional costs, which have been impacted by the postponement."

Tokyo says it's spending 12.6 billion to organize the Olympics. But a Japanese government audit published last year says the costs are twice that much. Of the total spending, 5.6 billion in private money. The rest is from Japanese governments.

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