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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Student found dead in hostel room in IIT Kharagpur
Kolkata (PTI): A 22-year-old M Tech student was found dead in his hostel room in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the second such incident reported on the campus within a span of 10 days.
The student, identified as Soham Haldar, was found hanging from the ceiling of his hostel room on Tuesday and he was immediately taken to the institute hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, an IIT Kharagpur official said.
Haldar, a dual-degree student in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, was a boarder of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hall of Residence on the campus.
Police from the Kharagpur Town police station have initiated a probe into the incident as preliminary findings indicated that it could be a case of suicide, though the exact cause of death will be ascertained following the post-mortem examination, the official said.
In a statement, the institute expressed deep grief over the student's death and said a detailed inquiry has been initiated.
The authorities have informed the family and are extending all possible assistance to them, it added.
Director Suman Chakraborty told PTI that the institute will strengthen the mechanism to identify stressed-out and depressed students and take follow-up steps to address their issues.
The grief-stricken parents of the student, who hailed from Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, have come to the campus and the authorities will speak to them, he said.
"Haldar's friends, faculty and staffers also could not gauge any stress or anxiety in him. But we need to enable students suffering from anxiety and extreme stress to open up their minds and do everything needed to prevent such incidents," he said.
Investigators are also scrutinising CCTV footage from the hostel premises to piece together the sequence of events leading to the incident.
The incident comes close on the heels of another student's death reported on April 18, when 21-year-old Jaibir Singh Dodia, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hall of Residence. That case is also under investigation.
The back-to-back incidents have once again brought the issue of mental health and student support systems at the institute into focus, especially in view of several such cases reported last year.
