Bhanwala becomes first Indian to win medal at U23 Worlds, takes bronze
Pontevedra (Spain) (PTI): Sajan Bhanwala became the first Indian Greco Roman wrestler to win a medal at the Under-23 World Championship when he edged past Ukraine's Dmytro Vasetskyi on 'criteria' to emerge winner in the bronze play-off, here.
It was the Ukrainian who pulled off a four-pointer on the edge of the circle for a solid start but Bhanwala bounced back immediately with a strong move that got him into a position from where he could pin his rival.
Though he could not pin his rival, it was good enough to earn four points.Bhanwala lost two more points and got into defensive mode.
For staying passive, Bhanwala put on 'Par Terre' position, something Indian wrestlers are very poor at defending and the Ukrainian pulled off another four-pointer from the ground position for a handsome 10-4 lead.
Bhanwala scored two points with a take-down move and with 35 seconds left in the bout, managed to push his rival on the back to level the scores. The bout ended at 10-10 but since the Indian had scored the last point he was declared winner on criteria.
Bhanwala had begun with a 3-0 win over Lithuania's Aistis Liaugminas but lost his pre-quarterfinal bout to Moldova's Alexandrin Gutu. As Gutu made the final, Bhanwala bounced back into medal contention via the repechage route and he made full use of that with a 9-6 win over Kazakhstan's Rassul Zhunis.
Meanwhile, Vikas will fight for a bronze in the 72kg after losing his semifinal by technical superiority to Croatia's Pavel Puklavec. He will be up against the winner of repechage contest between Georgios Theodoros Sotiriadis and Jpana's Daigo Kobayashi.
Before losing his semifinal clash, Vikas beat Kyrgyzstan's Adilkhan Nurlanbekov and home team rival Marcos Sanchez Silva Mejias by technical superiority, losing just one point across bouts.
In the 60kg category, Sumit got back to medal reckoning when he made the repechage round. He will be up agianst Kazakhastan's Olzhas Sultan.
In the 67kg competition, Ashu had bowed out after losing his qualfication bout by technical superiority to Georgia's Diego Chkhikvadze.
Six Greco Roman wrestlers travelled to the Spanish city for the championship along with two women and one free style wrestler while visas of 21 other Indians were rejected by the Embassy of Spain.
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Catholic Bishops' body slams Bhagwat's remarks
New Delhi: The Catholic Bishops' Conference of India on Thursday slammed RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for his reported remark that Pranab Mukherjee, when he was President, had said tribals would turn "anti-national" if there is no "ghar wapsi"Catholic Bishops.'
In a statement issued here, CBCI, a body of Catholic Bishops, referred to reports which said Bhagwat, at an event on Monday, claimed that Mukherjee, while he was President had appreciated ghar wapsi and told him that had it not been for the Sangh's work on reconversion, a section of Adivasis would have turned "anti-national".The CBCI called the report "shocking".
"Fabricated personal conversation being attributed to a former president of India and its posthumous publication with the vested interest of an organization with questionable credibility raises a grave issue of national importance," the CBCI claimed.
"Is it not the violent ghar wapsi program of VHP and other similar organizations, curtailing the exercise of freedom of conscience of economically deprived tribals, the real anti-national activity?" it asked.
'Ghar wapsi' is a term used by the RSS and affiliated organisations to refer to reconversion of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism, based on the belief that they were originally Hindus before converting to other religions.
The CBCI also questioned why Bhagwat did not speak about it while Mukherjee was alive.
"We, the 2.3 percent of Indian citizens who are Christians feel extremely hurt by such manipulated and motivated propaganda unleashed," it said.
In a post on X following the statement issued by CBCI, Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien said, "Speak up. This is a start!"
"Bishops body have issued a statement condemning remarks made by Dr Mohan Bhagwat and RSS for defaming the Christian community," he said.
O'Brien added that they should ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi more questions, including why Christmas Day has been turned into "Good Governance Day".
The TMC leader, in a blogpost earlier this month, had said "hard questions" must be asked to the government with regards to the Christian community, including why the FCRA has been 'weaponised', and why has Manipur been 'ignored'.
