Manu Bhaker-Saurabh Chaudhary pair smashes world record for mixed team gold at Asian Championship
New Delhi: Teenage Indian shooting stars Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary smashed the qualification world record before clinching the 10m air pistol mixed team gold in the 12th Asian Airgun Championship in Taoyuan, Taipei on Wednesday.
Their feat came exactly a month after they won the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup stage gold in the same event in Delhi.
The 17-year-old Manu and 16-year-old Saurabh shot a combined score of 784 in the qualification round, breaking the record set by Russians Vitalina Batsarashkina and Artem Chernousov at the European Championships five days ago.
The Indians then went on to win the five-team final with a score of 484.8.
Hwang Seongeun and Kim Mose of Korea won the silver with a score of 481.1 while Wu Chia Ying and Kou Kuan-Ting claimed the bronze for the host country with a score of 413.3.
A second Indian team comprising of Anuradha and Abhishek Verma also reached the finals and finished fourth with a score of 372.1, the National Rifle association of India (NRAI) said in a statement here.
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Waqf Bill anti-secular, will snatch rights of Muslims: Mamata Banerjee
Kolkata (PTI): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday described the Waqf (Amendment) Bill as “anti-secular”, claiming that it would snatch the rights of Muslims.
Banerjee, speaking in the assembly, also said the Centre did not consult with states over the matter.
“The bill is anti-federal and anti-secular; it is a deliberate attempt to malign a particular section. It will snatch the rights of Muslims... The Centre did not consult with us on the Waqf Bill,” she said.
The chief minister added that “if any religion was attacked”, she would wholeheartedly condemn it.
Opposition parties have stridently criticised the amendments proposed by the bill in the existing Waqf Act, alleging that they violate the religious rights of Muslims.
The ruling BJP has asserted that the amendments will bring transparency in the functioning of the Waqf boards and make them accountable.
A parliamentary committee has been constituted to scrutinise the contentious bill.
