Indian boxers will improve medals tally at Asiad: Boxer Vikas Krishan Yadav
New Delhi, April 21: Praising his fellow boxers for their performance at the recently concluded Commonwealth Games, star pugilist and gold medal winner Vikas Krishan Yadav asserted that the Indian squad will improve their medal haul at the Asian Games later this year.
India picked up nine boxing medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, earlier this month. All the eight Indian boxers in the men's categories finished on the podium while five-time world champion M.C. Mary Kom won gold in the women's 48 kg division.
Vikas was confident that Indian boxers will put up a much better show at this year's Asian Games than the 2014 edition, although he admitted that the standard will be much tougher than the Commonwealth Games.
"There is no comparison between the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. The Asiad is like a mini Olympics. Countries like Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Mongolia, China and former Soviet nations like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are among the stronger nations in world boxing. The Asian Games is going to be much tougher. We will not get such easy competition like the Commonwealth Games," Vikas told IANS.
"But still we should improve our medal haul at the Asian Games, including at least one gold. Last time we got just two medals when Satish and I got bronzes in our respective categories. This time we should get four to five medals," he added.
However, the 26-year-old felt that with all eight Indian boxers among the men reaching the semi-finals of their respective categories, the number of gold medals should have been higher.
Gaurav Solanki, who emerged champion in the flyweight (52kg) division, was the only Indian apart from Vikas to win gold among the men.
"Overall performance was good, but we could have won more gold medals. Manish (Kaushik), Amit (Phangal) and Satish (Kumar) all lost by very small margins in their respective finals. All these finals were extremely close and could have gone either way," the Haryana pugilist said.
"The final bouts that our boxers won, like me and Gaurav Solanki, were by 5:0 margins. But the finals that we lost were by scores like 3:2. So the fact that five of our boxers did so well after reaching their respective finals reveals volumes of our high standards," he added.
Vikas, who won gold in the middleweight (75kg) category in Gold Coast, asserted that he did not face too much of a challenge on his way to the maiden Commonwealth Games title of his career.
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Bangladesh's interim govt revokes ousted PM Sheikh Hasina's passport
Dhaka, Jan 7: Bangladesh's interim government on Tuesday said it has revoked the passport of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and 96 others over their alleged involvement in enforced disappearances and the July killings.
Hasina, 77, has been living in India since August 5 last year when she fled Bangladesh following a massive student-led protest that toppled her Awami League's (AL) 16-year regime.
Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) has issued arrest warrants for Hasina and several former Cabinet ministers, advisers, and military and civil officials for “crimes against humanity and genocide”.
Addressing a press briefing here, Chief Adviser's Deputy Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder said, "The Passports Department cancelled passports of 22 people involved in enforced disappearances, while passports of 75 people, including Sheikh Hasina, were revoked due to their involvement in the July killings.”
He, however, did not reveal the names of the remaining individuals whose passports were cancelled, the state-run BSS news agency reported.
