India to host women's World Boxing Championship next year: BFI
New Delhi (PTI): India will host the women's world boxing championships in 2023 in New Delhi, two years after the country was stripped of the hosting rights of men's event for not paying the requisite fee to the global governing body.
India has never conducted the men's world championship but it will be the third time that the elite women's competition will be held in the country having conducted the championships in 2006 and 2018 in New Delhi.
"We have got the hosting rights of women's world championship and are looking to host the event around the end of March and first week of April," Boxing Federation of India (BFI) Secretary General Hemanta Kalita told PTI.
International Boxing Association (IBA) President Umar Kremlev is on his maiden visit to the country and the dates of the marquee event will be finalised during the trip.
"The dates of the event are yet to be finalised. We will sit down with the IBA president and reach an agreement during his trip," Kalita added.
The tournament is likely to be held at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
The hosting rights of the event to India comes as a significant development as BFI had lost the hosting rights of the 2021 event to Serbia after failing to pay the host fee, prompting the International Boxing Association, then known as (AIBA), to terminate its agreement.
At the last edition of the women's event in Turkey, India had returned with a haul of three medals, including Nikhat Zareen's gold in the flyweight category.
Kremlev had recently announced that the men's world championship, to be held in Tashkent next year in May, will see the prize money go double from the previous edition.
It is to be seen if the world body announces the same for the women's event.
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Karnataka Leadership row: All eyes on Siddaramaiah''s trip to Delhi to attend CWC meet
Bengaluru (PTI): All eyes are set on Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s trip to Delhi to attend the Congress Working Committee meeting.
The meeting comes in the midst of the leadership issue in the state, where Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar’s supporters are interested in seeing him as the next CM soon. About his visit to Delhi, Siddaramaiah told reporters in Davangere, “I am going for the CWC meeting today but I don’t go to Delhi frequently.”
Chief Minister had recently said inside the Karnataka Assembly that the party high command appears to be on his side and he would complete his five-year tenure.
Before leaving for New Delhi for the CWC meeting, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters that all the confusion would be sorted out.
“I will speak there. Why will I speak here?” Kharge said.
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As the reporters asked him when the confusion over leadership in the state would be sorted out, he said, “It will be sorted out. You don’t need to worry about it.”
Shivakumar on Wednesday dismissed speculation about a possible change of guard in the state after Makara Sankranti, saying such talk exists only in the media and not within the party or government.
Shivakumar, who was in Delhi, said he is not meeting anyone during this trip.
"Kharge is in Delhi. I think Rahul Gandhi came yesterday, and I don't want to disturb him," he said.
Asked about the change of guard in Karnataka, he told reporters, "The speculation is only in the media. There is no speculation within the party or anywhere in the government. The media is only speculating about things."
Speaking about his current role, the Deputy CM said, "I would love to be a party worker rather than (holding) any position in the party. That is permanent for me," adding that he has been working for the party since 1980, completing 45 years of service.
Congress MLA from Ramanagara, H A Iqbal Hussain, a Shivakumar loyalist, has even predicted that there will be a leadership change in the state on January 6 or 9.
Sources in the Chief Minister’s Office told PTI that leadership change may not figure in the CWC meeting in New Delhi.
“The information we have is that this is only about drawing strategies for the upcoming Assembly elections in the country,” a source said.
Besides Siddaramaiah, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu will also be attending the meeting,” he added.
