Javelin thrower Neeraj strikes gold at Sotteville athletics meet
New Delhi, July 18 : India's star javelin-thrower Neeraj Chopra have clinched the gold at the Sotteville Athletics meet in France.
Neeraj, who had won the gold medal at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games earlier in 2018, threw 85.17 metres to bag the yellow metal with a massive margin late on Tuesday in Sotteville-les-Rouen of the Normandy region.
Moldova's Andrian Mardare threw a distance of 81.48m to take the silver while Edis Matusevicius (79.31m) of Lithuania settled for bronze.
Neeraj's performance was brilliant as he did not falter in even a single attempt and completed each of his rounds. Even as his score of 85.17m came in his fifth attempt, he came close to his eventual winning mark in his third attempt.
Although he clinched the gold with the 85.17m throw, this was not the Indian's best throw. He had earlier improved his own national record with a throw of 87.43 metres at the IAAF Diamond League where he finished fourth in the season-opening leg.
Earlier in the year, Neeraj struck a gold medal for India with a throw of 86.47m in men's Javelin Throw Final at the Commonwealth Games.
The 20-year-old from Panipat is also a part of India's squad for the Asian Games 2018 and all eyes will be on him as he will be gunning for the gold in Jakarta as well.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
