marginal hike in sports budget
New Delhi: The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports on Monday got a marginal hike of around Rs 12 crore in the interim budget for 2014-15 presented by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in Parliament here. In his interim budget presented in the lok Sabha, Chidambaram allocated Rs 1093 crore as plan outlay while Rs 126 crore was set aside for non-plan for a total figure of Rs 1219 crore. The plan outlay has been kept the same with that of previous year and the increase in the total allocation was made in the Non-Plan outlay. Interestingly, this year's interim allocation was the same as that of the original outlay in the 2013-14 budget which was later revised to Rs 1207.76 crore (Rs 1093 crore Plan and Rs 114.76 crore Non-Plan).
Fencing Association re-instated
New Delhi: With the IOA's return to the Olympic fold, Indian fencers will be able to the represent the country after Fencing Association of India's (FAI) suspension has been revoked by the sport's international federation. The FAI has been suspended by International Fencing Federation (FIE) after International Olympic Committee suspended India on December 5, 2012. Now that the suspension on the Indian Olympic Association has been lifted, the FIE also decided to revoke the suspension it had imposed on the FAI. "We got a letter from the FIE the day IOC lifted the ban on the IOA, saying that we are no longer under suspension. Then the FIE Executive Board meeting on Feb 14-15 ratified the decision," FAI Secretary Sanjay Pradhan said.
Sanam out of Challenger
New Delhi: Wild card Sanam Singh failed to rein in his unforced errors as he crashed out of the ONGC-GAIl Delhi Open even as Nidhi Chulmula and Prerna Bhambri also fell by the wayside in the women's ITF event, here on Monday. Sanam, playing against eight seed Ukrainian Illya Marchenko, lost his opening round 2-6 6-3 4-6 in little over two hours at the centre court of the R K Khanna Tennis stadium. Talented left-hander Prajnesh Gunneswaran's tame 2-6, 1-6 defeat against Briton Daniel Cox in the final qualifying round meant that there was no addition to the presence of Indians in the men's singles main draw. Prajnesh was carrying a muscle tear in his stomach since the start of the qualifiers. Meanwhile, in the women's event, India's both wild card entrants Nidhi and Shweta Rana along with Prerna Bhambri bowed out after straight set thrashings. Nidhi lost 3-6 2-6 to Thailand's Peangtam Plipuech while Rana was hammered 2-6 0-6 by Chinese Qiang Wang.
42 teams for Hockey Nat’l c'ship
New Delhi: Forty-two teams will battle it out at the 4th edition of the Hockey India Senior Men National championship 2014, to be played in lucknow from 27 February to 23 March. The championship will be played on a league-cum-knockout basis at the Major Dhyan Chand Hockey Stadium in lucknow. This edition will see four new teams including Hockey Gangpur — Odisha, Vidarbha Hockey Association, Central Reserve Police Force and Food Corporation of India. The Senior Men National Championship will be played in two phases Division A and B. There will be 20 teams competing in Division A, while Division B will see 22 teams. Division B of the championship will be played from 27 February to 13 March and Division A will be played from March 11 to 23.