Vinesh Phogat deserves silver medal at least, says Ganguly
Kolkata, Aug 11: Former India cricket captain Sourav Ganguly on Sunday extended his support to wrestler Vinesh Phogat, saying she deserves at least a silver medal for reaching the 50kg freestyle final at the Paris Olympics.
The 29-year-old Vinesh was disqualified ahead of the gold-medal bout for being 100gm overweight above the prescribed limit in the morning weigh-in, crushing her Olympic dream. The heartbreak prompted her to announce her retirement from wrestling.
"I don't know the exact rule, but I'm sure that when she reached the finals, she must have qualified properly," Ganguly told reporters when asked for his opinion on the matter on the sidelines of the Kolkata Food Festival here.
"So when you go to the finals, it's either a gold or silver medal. Whether she was disqualified wrongfully or not, I don't know, but she deserves the silver medal at least," he added.
Vinesh has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), demanding that she be awarded a joint silver medal with Cuban wrestler Yusneylis Guzman Lopez, who had lost to the Indian but was later promoted to the final following the Haryana wrestler's disqualification.
American Sarah Hildebrandt won the gold after defeating Lopez in the title clash.
The decision on Vinesh's appeal is expected to come on August 13.
Cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar also had supported Vinesh, saying the disqualification of the Indian wrestler, "defied logic and sporting sense", and asked for rules to be revisited.
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Doctors who died on duty during COVID-19 entitled to insurance under PMGKY: SC
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New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court held on Thursday that the families of the doctors who died while doing their duties during the COVID-19 pandemic are entitled to an insurance coverage of Rs 50 lakh under the "Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana".
A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and R Mahadevan set aside a Bombay High Court judgment that had held that private doctors were not entitled to the coverage under the government's insurance scheme.
"There is a requisition of the services of doctors and this is evident from the conjoint reading of the provisions of the Act, the Maharashtra Prevention and Containment of COVID-19 Regulations 2020, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation Order dated March 31, 2020, the PMGKY-Package Scheme, the explanatory communication to the PMGKY policy and the FAQs released," the bench said.
It said the invocation of laws and regulations was intended to leave no stone unturned in requisitioning the doctors and the insurance scheme was equally intended to assure doctors and health professionals in the frontline that the country is with them.
The court said individual claims for insurance made under the PMGKY-Package will be considered and decided in accordance with the law and on the basis of evidence.
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"The onus to prove that a deceased lost his life while performing a COVID-19-related duty is on the claimant and the same needs to be established on the basis of credible evidence," it added.
The top court was hearing a plea moved by Pradeep Arora and others against a March 9, 2021, order of the Bombay High Court that held that private hospital staffers were not entitled to receive benefits under the insurance scheme unless their services were requisitioned by the state or the central government.
A plea was filed in the high court by Kiran Bhaskar Surgade, who lost her husband -- who ran a private clinic in Maharashtra's Thane -- to COVID-19 in 2020.
The insurance company rejected her claim under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) on the ground that her husband's clinic was not recognised as a COVID-19 hospital.
The PMGKP was announced in March 2020 and its coverage has since been extended.
It was launched to provide a safety net to health workers to ensure that in case of any adversity due to COVID-19, their families are taken care of.
An insurance cover of Rs 50 lakh is provided to the health workers under the PMGKP, which has become a safety net for the dependents of the Covid warriors who lost their lives to the infection.
