While we all rejoice the sliver in #TokyoOlympics2021 and several other small victories in sports by India – world’s 2nd Largest country in population, it constantly reminds us about few facts about facilities, infrastructure, willingness to choose a sport based on its success rate, willingness to choose a sport based on its popularity.
“India has won 29 medals at the Olympics since the 1900 edition. India has the worst population to medals ratio at the Olympics. Since India’s maiden appearance at the Summer Olympics in 1900, the country has managed to score just 28 medals overall.”
The reason India always consistently falls short on the world forum is deep-rooted and systemic.
Perhaps the biggest reason is that the country has a notorious reputation for neglecting and under-funding sports. That’s why a luge competitor had to screw wheels to the bottom of his sledge and practice on Himalayan roads, and a medal-winning gymnast learnt to vault off a discarded scooter.
Cricket DNA of Indians – A Sport people can bring their world to halt stage
The cricket-crazed nation has paid little attention to any other sport.
Why do produce some of the finest Cricketers?
– Some figures on IPL ( State wise Split Of Domestic Players Sold At IPL 2021 Auctions )
– 4 Players – Karnataka and Kerala
– 3 Players – Tamil Nadu and Delhi
– 2 Players – Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Saurashtra, and Andhra Pradesh
– 1 Player – Vidarbha, Gujarat, Puducherry, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, J&K, Telangana, Punjab, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan
Indian Cricket Team – Region wise Breakup in most recent International Cricket Team
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Why are we so obsessed about Cricket? It is not our national sport, Is it because it has lot of money? Fame or it has so many audience across the globe? See the blow quite
“India constitutes 90 percent of one billion cricket fans: ICC research”
Some scary aspects to know why we are not doing well in Olympics.
Currently, India recognizes 59 National Sports Federations, up from 48 in 2016. This is crucial because not recognizing sports had in the past led to clashes between the federations and Indian Olympics Association and dried up funding.
We often talk about few and fewer opportunities based on geography people belongs to based on its socio economic state for both education and sports, but above statistics are speaking something else.
Most successful cricketers have come from most unreasonable conditions and geography, why ?
Why not for other sports? Do we have a Cricket Stadium in all the villages where these cricketers came from?
Most of the biopics of successful sports personalities show the struggles they understand to make our nation proud, apart from momentary patriotic pleasure did we ever feeling anything else? Are they not calling for action ?
Was talking one of the top doctors, who is the family doctor to Padma Shri awarding sports personality, on their conversation the player dint posses basic understanding of few mathematical problems, curious doctor learnt that the this sports star had never been to school, her/his parents took biggest risk of now getting her/him educated and just allowed to focus on her/his passion.
We speak about education first, marks to be the most important aspects of a child’s life and India’s top EdTech is official partner to Indian Cricket Team, we are taking sports route to let people know an EdTech product. Do we need better messaging to the parents how many silent sports stars are being malnourished as they are not being fed enough to pursue their sports dreams?
How many schools have a dedicated sports cell ?
Like we have Primary Health Centers in each village, why cant we have Primary Sports Centers ?
why cant we eliminate monopoly in sports authorities ?
why should player be nice to selectors besides practicing well and being best at what they do ?
OLYMPIC Games
There are totally 46 Games played In Olympics and how many is India representing?
Does many kids know all these sports at all and they can represent their country at International platform ?
Let us closely look at India’s representation in Olympics so far and our performance.
Out of 46 Games, India represents just 8…
Its quite disheartening to see lack of vision for our children from school level about equal importance to sports and studies, its disappointing to see parents discuss about poor performance by India in Olympics while they traumatise their children to study 18-19 hrs a day.
Children are spending too much time watching television or using computers and mobile devices, according to a study which suggests that kids of first-time mothers and those in home-based childcare log most screen time. Children’s average daily time spent on screens increased from 53 minutes at age 12 months to more than 150 minutes at 3 years, according to the study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
Digital Era – Screen Time
In the current study, the researchers found that 87 percent of the children had screen time exceeding these recommendations. However, while screen time increased throughout toddlerhood, by age 7 and 8, screen time fell to under 1.5 hours per day.
The researchers believe this decrease relates to time consumed by school-related activities. The researchers classified the children into two groups based on how much their average daily screen time increased from age 1 to age 3.
Mothers of nearly 4,000 children who took part in the study responded to questions on their kids’ media habits when they were 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months of age. They also responded to similar questions when the children were 7 and 8 years old.
The first group, 73 percent of the total, had the lowest increase, from an average of nearly 51 minutes a day to nearly an hour and 47 minutes a day.
The second group, 27 percent of the total, had the highest increase, from nearly 37 minutes of screen time a day to about 4 hours a day.
Time Child gets to play – Outdoor Activity
Children in India have less opportunities to play outdoors than their parents had as kids, according to a survey in 10 countries which found that over half of children globally play outside for one hour or less each day. The study included a 20-minute online quantitative survey with over 12,000 parents who have at least one child aged between 5-12. Previous research shows that playing outside can benefit the child by making them love nature, have active brains and boosts their eyesight.
The survey was conducted by market research firm Edelman Intelligence, in February and March 2016, across 10 countries — India, US, Brazil, UK, Turkey, Portugal, South Africa, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia. A total of 1,000 interviews were conducted in 10 countries, except the UK and the US. Researchers found that in India, 56% of parents believe their child has less opportunities to play than they did as a child, researchers said. They also found that 56% of children globally play outside for one hour or less, each day.
Govt Role
Recently, increased capital investments and successful large-scale hosting of events have boosted the development of sports infrastructure in India, also opening up various commercial opportunities in the industry. However, regulation of the Indian sports industry regulation is still highly decentralised and fragmented.
National or state legislation for sports regulation does not exist in India. The Ministry of Youth and Sports (MYAS) has been established by the Government of India to create infrastructure, achieve excellence in national and international sporting events, and build capacity for broad-based sports. In addition, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) has been set up by the ministry as an apex body. It develops and looks after stadiums and fields on behalf of the ministry. However, sports being largely a state subject, the bulk of the infrastructure is under the purview of state governments.
What is Not Working?
Encouraging sports in schools
The basis of sports education or physical education starts in school. Sports education is a curriculum and instruction model designed to impart physical education programmes at the upper elementary, middle and high school level. It aims to provide children and youth with authentic and enjoyable sports experience. Sports education always complements academic learning as it develops the overall personality of the students greatly. A good sportsman is the one who learns to obey the rules of the game. Sports inculcate qualities like leadership, discipline, sharing, team work, honesty, team spirit, tolerance and many more among the students. With the passage of time, we see most of the schools are aware that education is not just academics, but extends to a holistic development of a child, and sports plays a vital role in it. Steps are taken to employ professional coaches in schools. Specific time is allotted to sports education and parents have also started getting involved by encouraging their children take up sports apart from studies.
Schools in India are gradually beginning to realise the importance of sports in the overall development of children, and how vital it is to encourage them to take up sports. The growing awareness of how sports contribute to the growth of children in terms of life skills, has led parents and school authorities to encourage children to take up sports, whereas previously the focus was entirely on academics. The realisation that sports help in the development of team work, trust, sharing responsibilities and working together towards a common goal has led to a spurt in the sports activities in schools.
The Reality
Lack of modern facilities in schools– Many schools are still not equipped with facilities like playground, equipments, techniques, strategies, qualified coaches etc. Scientific approach towards the development of physical education and sports education also needs to be taken care of. India, despite being the youngest country in the world, with the largest population below the age of 25, has not made
significant presence in the world of sports. Though hockey is the national game, India has not done well in it at the global level. In other sports as well, our condition is rather pathetic.
Lack of Investment by schools as well as by parents for excellence in sports- Generally in India, sports are not considered as profession and so school authorities and parents step back when it comes to investment in sports for the children.
Talents need to be nurtured and encouraged- India is a land of talent where one sees many budding sport stars in the narrow lanes of small towns. These talents need to be enhanced and guided by showing the way out to excel in their sporting skills.
Lack of qualified coaches- Coach training programmes are not encouraged in India, as a result schools lack trained coaches.
Academics is given importance- Student’s daily routine is embedded with maximum number of hours being spent in studies, in coaching / tuition centres in higher classes which does not permit students at the high school level to participate in sports.
Functioning of the sports bodies- Government official who heads the various sports committees and associations needs to function effectively to overcome the challenges faced in imparting sports education in the country.
Inappropriate allocation and use of budget- The budgetary allocation for sports, which comes under the Union Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, is not as much as compared to the countries that excel in the Olympics and other international sports events.
It’s a collective failure on our part not to give children enough opportunity in pursuing their passion in sports and allowing them to take a chance, parents fail to accept failure and can’t take societal stigma if the child doesn’t do well in studies. We see many professionals silently cry when they miss the bus and just hope their children have better career prospects. Kids attend classes online or offline for almost 6-7 hours, they are expected to excel due to which they opt for alternative learning methods which will take out almost 2-3 hrs from them. Where do they have time to play and discover their calling ?
All we are bothered is about marks, medals that we lost, politics we cant influence and life we live for others.