Panaji: Goa Sports Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar has said the Indian Super League will be held in the coastal state as per the standard operating procedures and guidelines of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Goa government will also try to boost tourism in the state by hosting the Indian Super League (ISL), Ajgaonkar told reporters on Sunday.

All matches of the seventh edition of ISL will be held at three venues in Goa, likely in November, amid strict health and safety measures to deal with the COVID-19 threat, the organisers said on Sunday.

The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at Fatorda in Margao, the Tilak Nagar Stadium at Vasco da Gama and the GMC Athletic Stadium at Bambolim are the venues slated to host the matches.

Ajgaonkar said the Goa government is happy to host ISL in the state. "We have already given permission for the ISL games in Goa", he said, adding that all SOPs will be followed along with guidelines of the MHA. Football is our state game and through it, we will be pushing for tourism, said Ajgaonkar, who also holds charge of the tourism department in the Pramod Sawant-led government.

He said nearly 500 rooms in various hotels would be booked for the event, which will provide business to the tourism stakeholders.

The matches will be held without the presence of spectators at the venues, the minister said. "But, if we manage to find any solution for COVID-19, then we might even allow spectators," he added.

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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.