COVID-19 impact: Boxing's Asian Championship in India postponed to 2021
New Delhi: The Asian Boxing Championship, which was to be held in India in November-December, has been postponed to next year owing to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the national federation's Secretary General Jay Kowli told PTI on Tuesday.
The decision was taken at the Asian Boxing Confederation's (ASBC) Executive Committee meeting held online on Monday.
"A postponement was proposed owing to the conditions prevailing because of the pandemic and it was accepted. India remains the host and the tournament will now happen in 2021," Kowli, who is a member of the ASBC EC, said.
"The 2021 window for it will be discussed in the next EC meeting in November," he added.
India last hosted the men's Asian meet back in 1980 in Mumbai before conducting the women's event in 2003 in Hisar. The tournament became a combined event for men and women last year.
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown sporting calendars haywire the world over with several big events, including the Olympics and the T20 World Cup of cricket, postponed.
"We have to be careful, the cases are on the rise everywhere. Unless it is definitive that there is a decline, it was thought best to put things on hold," Kowli said.
"The ASBC decided that there is a possibility of just one event, probably in November in China, where only the top boxers can compete to keep the field small. But that is also just a proposal, it may or may not happen," he added.
In India, the case load has surged past 25 lakh and the death toll has crossed 50,000. However, there have been small steps towards sporting resumption beginning with the training camps.
A handful of boxers have assembled for a camp in Patiala which has gone along smoothly till now. So far, nine Indian boxers -- five men and four women -- have qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
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Sheikh Hasina should be allowed to stay in India as long as she wants: Mani Shankar Aiyar
Kolkata (PTI): Former career diplomat, ex-union minister and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said that deposed Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina should be allowed to stay in India as long as she wants.
Expressing happiness that Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri went to Dhaka last month and held discussions with the authorities there, Aiyar told PTI on the sidelines of the 16th Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival that the talks should be continuous and New Delhi needs to establish ministerial contacts with the interim government of Bangladesh.
About demands by Bangladesh to extradite Hasina, he said, "I hope we will never disagree that Sheikh Hasina has done a lot of good for us. I am glad she was given refuge. I think we should be her host as long as she wants, even if it is for all her life."
Hasina, 77, has been living in India since August 5 when she fled Bangladesh following a massive student-led protest that toppled her 16-year regime.
The Congress leader said that it is true that minority Hindus in Bangladesh are being attacked, but mostly it is because they are supporters of Hasina.
“They (reports about attacks on Hindus) are true but exaggerated because many of the conflicts are more about settlement of political differences," he said on Saturday.
Earlier during a question hour session, Aiyar said that Pakistanis are much like Indians, but only the accident of partition made them a different country.
“There exists much more difference in me as a Tamil and my wife as a Punjabi, than between her and a Pakistani Punjabi,” he said.
Taking a jibe at the Narendra Modi regime, the Congress leader claimed, “We have the courage to undertake surgical strike but this government does not have the courage to sit across the table with them."
Pakistan is a country which "spreads terror but it is also a victim of terror', Aiyar said.
"They (Pakistan) thought they could bring Taliban to power in Afghanistan, (but) today their single biggest threat is the Taliban in Afghanistan," he said.
In a compliment to former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Aiyar said his single biggest achievement was to ensure that India talked to Pakistan on the back channel on what Gen Musharraf called the four-point agreement on Kashmir.
Singh also showed that it is possible to talk business with a military government, he said.
"It is suicidal for us to continue wearing Pakistan around our neck like the albatross. We should just talk to them as Manmohan Singh showed on the issue of Kashmir,” he said.
Aiyar took part in a discussion on his recent book where he touched on issues like his relation with the Gandhi family, his tryst with the Congress party, his stint in the days at Cambridge and his commentary on the present situation in the country.
