It is not surprising that the International Olympic Committee’s decision to drop wrestling from the Games 2020 onwards has been met with shock.
It is not surprising that the International Olympic Committee’s decision to drop wrestling from the Games 2020 onwards has been met with shock. Wrestling has been an Olympic sport since the Games’ inception in ancient Greece. The Indian wrestling fraternity has many talented wrestlers like Sushil Kumar and Vijender Singh. Excluding one of the oldest Olympic sports will be a blow to established and upcoming wrestlers all over the world who have already started preparing for 2016 and 2020 in earnest. Anuj Saxena Via email
*** UPA’s chopper storm After being tainted with mega scams — the Commonwealth Games scam, the 2G scam and others — the government is now grappling with another scandal involving bribery in the acquisition of expensive helicopters for VIPs. The helicopter deal, worth '3,546 crores, was signed between the Indian government and an Italian defence and aerospace firm called Finmeccanica, whose chief Giuseppe Orsi was arrested in Italy on charges of corruption. It was only after his arrest that our government ordered an inquiry by the CBI, though it has been known since last December that Italian authorities were investigating the helicopter deal. Why did the government not order a probe then Was it hoping for the storm to pass Partha Pratim Hazarika New Delhi
*** A jinxed dais Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik was seen hobnobbing with Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, on Tuesday. Malik was on hungerstrike in Pakistan to protest against the hanging of Afzal Guru. Although he said that Saeed had just dropped by for 15 minutes and claimed there was no “meeting”, he should not have shared the dais with Saeed. It does not give out a good message when an Indian citizen shares the stage with the country’s most-wanted terror accused. Kundan Sharma New Delhi
