Chess is a mind game and is a very popular and traditional game played in our country. After the exploits of world champion V. Anand, many of our country’s youngsters have taken up to the game and have been making rapid strides in this sport.
On such chess champion from our city is IM M.S. Thej Kumar. Thej Kumar taking part in the Shri Narayanrao L. Kurtkoti Memorial Rapid Chess Championship at Dharwad yesterday won the title by scoring 8.5 points out of a possible nine. He is our Star This Week.
IM Thej Kumar, an employee of South Western Railways, Mysore, is a talented chess player who is the only player in the Karnataka who has achieved the three Grand Master norms and has another 94 points to get his Grand Master title.
He is being helped in his pursuits for this norm by encouragement from the Government of Karnataka and also with sponsorship from www.mysoresport.com and Saanvi Technologies, USA.
Taking part in the Karnataka State Rapid Chess Tournament in Dharwad recently. Thej Kumar had wins over S.G. Bharghav of Dharwad, Rahul Mayur Sharma of Bangalore, K. Shantaram of Chikmagalur, S.M. Raviprakash of Mysore, V.A. Akshay of Dharwad, Dasari Dattetreya Rao of Dharwad, S. Shreeshan of Dharwad and Vivekraj of Mangalore. He drew his seventh round with V.K. Koti of Dharwad.
Presently he is taking part in the 14th National Cities Chess Championships being held at Kottayam, Kerala representing Bangalore City. In the first round, the team beat Kottayam ‘B’ 4-0.
Thej Kumar recently taking part in the Mayor’s Cup International-rating Chess Tournament at Mumbai, fared well.
Thej Kumar had wins against Chakravarthi Reddy of India, S. Mari Arul of India and Manisha Mohanty of India.
He has been invited to play in four tournaments in France from the end of June to the end of August. He aims to play well in the tournaments and intends to work hard and gain maximum points so that he gets his Grand Master title soon.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Sports / June 16th, 2013
26-year-old Farhan from Koramangala who controls the steering of the vehicle with just two fingers and the brake and accelerator from the side passenger seat. / The New Indian Express
Caution! No driver in this car. These words may seem familiar to those few who may have come across this placard but definitely strange to many of those Bangaloreans who may have not witnessed this. We are talking about 26-year-old Farhan from Koramangala who controls the steering of the vehicle with just two fingers and the brake and accelerator from the side passenger seat. People look at his car with amusement when they realise that the car is without a driver. It makes them wonder as to who is driving the car and that too amidst the chaotic traffic of Bangalore city.
Interestingly, for the last one month, Farhan has been using his unique talent to promote awareness on many issues. He has pasted a few messages like ‘Wear helmet and drive’, ‘Give respect to women’, Leave sooner, ‘drive safely, safety is must’, ‘Do not drink and drive, ‘ ‘Keep the city clean’ and ‘Do not use mobile while driving.’
Speaking to City Express, he says, “It is because of my friends’ support that I came up with this idea. Since I am a working professional, I do it during the weekends only. But I am happy to do something which hopefully people will implement in their personal life.”
It has been nine years since Farhan has been driving, steering from the side passenger seat. He has even made it to the Limca Book of Records in 2009 by covering the distance from Bangalore to Ooty. Even the Guiness Book of world records have taken note of this unique record. He says, “They have not approved this feat as of now as they feel it is not legal to drive on the roads in this manner. Now I want to drive from Kanyakumari to Ladakh to set a new record, but the Regional Transport Office has not approved it. I am on my own and do not have any backing from any other organisation. Since what I do is considered illegal, it is difficult to get the permission.”
Give him any vehicle and any type of traffic, Farhan can manage it perfectly. It all started from his father’s old Fiat car when he was in his second year of his B.Com.
He said, “Being a tall guy, I had problems driving my father’s vehicle from the driver’s seat. One day, when my younger brother was sitting beside me, I told him to move back and took the side passenger seat and tried driving it from there. I was able to drive the Fiat without any glitch and from that day onwards, I am on a roll and there is no stopping to my passion.”
Farhan has neither faced any problems with the traffic department nor been fined by them anytime. But he has undergone his share of many challenges. Farhan tried to convince Dr M A Saleem, Additional Commissioner of Bangalore Traffic Police to grant him permission to drive from Kanyakumari to Ladakh but was disappointed when he was threatened to put behind bars.
“There are so many people doing wrong things, why are they not threatened with arrest? What is wrong with what I do?” he questioned.
In another instance, a journalist from a TV channel who interviewed him, took the matter to a traffic personnel stationed at MG Road who threatened him with dire consequences if seen on MG Road again.
His talent has not only grabbed the eyeballs of the common people but also politicians.
He was once approached by a member of the Aam Aadmi Party to travel around in his car with posters of Aam Aadmi but Farhan said, “I do not want to be associated with politics. I want to support causes that I believe in and that too as an individual.”
Undoubtedly, he attracts a lot of attention when he is in his car and he loves it. He says, “I love every bit of it. When I am walking on the streets of Bangalore, I am like any other person but as soon as I am in my car I am treated differently by everyone around. I feel that they are in a dilemma whether to come up and start a conversation. In fact, I am happy to speak to anybody who approaches me.”
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bangalore / by Sangeeta Bora – Bangalore / June 11th, 2013
Deviprakash Bhandari from Puttur is representing All India Budokan Karate Federation, India in the World Union of Karate Do Federations (WUKF) World Karate Championship at Bucharest, Romania from June 5 to June 9.
He had participated in the WUKF intercontinental championships held at Delhi in November 2012 and also the National Level Championship at Vishakhapatnam in February this year and had emerged winner in both Kata and Kumite categories.
Apart from these recent competitions, he has also participated and won in several state and national-level championships in his martial arts career spanning the last 15-plus years.
Introduced to Karate at a very early age, Deviprakash has been practicing different forms of martial arts from the last 15 years under the guidance of his coach and instructor Shihan Suresh M who is the assistant chief instructor of Institute of Karate and Allied Arts (IKAA), Mangalore and is one among the senior-most instructors of the institute.
In spite of having more than 15 years of practice in Karate, Deviprakash still holds a brown belt and is yet to appear for his black belt grading which typically takes 4 to 5 years. When asked about it, he humbly says that he still has lots to achieve in the field and his longtime dream has been to win a Grand Champion Title in a karate competition before he can consider himself eligible to receive the coveted black belt degree.
“Devi” as he is popularly known, is the son of well-known Yakshagana artiste Sridhar and Usha Bhandari from Puttur, and is currently employed with Airtel as territory manager.
source: http://www.daijiworld.com / DaijiWorld.com / Home> Top Stories / Saturday, June 08th, 2013
Olympians Sahana Kumari of Karnataka and Tintu Luka of Kerala won their respective events while Tamil Nadu long jumper Prem Kumar set a new meet record on the second day of the 53rd National Inter-State Senior Athletic Championships on Wednesday.
Prem Kumar cleared 8m in his fifth and final jump to set a new meet record. Arshad of Karnataka (7.85m) was second while Ankit Sharma of Madhya Pradesh was third in 7.67m.
Favourite Luka, watched by her mentor P T Usha, won the women’s 800m race in 2min 04.14secs. She led all through the race and finished three seconds ahead of Gomathi of Tamil Nadu (2:07.33). Haryana’s Sushma Devi (2:07.95s) was third.
32-year-old Sahana, a mother of a seven-year-old girl, was the main attraction at high jump event and she won it with an effort of 1.88m. She, however, flopped in her all three attempts to reach her own mark of 1.92m, which is also the national record.
Mallika Mondal of Bengal (1.74m) and N D Tintu of Kerala (1.68m) won the silver and bronze medals respectively.
Coming back from an injury after two years, G Gayathry, a local collegiate from St Joseph’s Academy, brought cheers to the home state, as she won gold in 100m hurdles, while Kerala’s Pinto Mathew bagged her maiden title at senior level when he clinched gold in a tight race in men’s 110m hurdles.
22-year-old Gayathry covered the distance in 13.97secs which was just 0.53 seconds below Anuradha Biswal’s meet record set in July 2000. It was one-two for Tamil Nadu as J Hamasree (14.04s) claimed the silver, while Kerala’s K V Sajitha (14.33s) settled for bronze.
In the men’s hurdles, Pinto won gold in 14.56secs, while Tamil Nadu’s Balamurugan (14.76s) and Sandeep Parmar of Maharashtra (14.82s) were second and third respectively.
In women’s shot put, Andhra Pradesh’s Udaya Laxmi, a silver medallist at home last year, threw the iron ball to 13.68m to win gold while Neha Singh (13.56m) of M P and Punjab’s Navjit Kaur (13.49m) won silver and bronze respectively.
Continuing with its 14-year-old tradition of mountaineering, a five-member team of students of Bishop Cotton School (BCS) embarked upon an expedition to DeoTibba (6,100 mt) near Manali on Saturday.
Led by Mahim Gupta, the team comprises class XI-XII students Sanjeev Sikri, Madhav, Shubham and Anirudh Depta and staff member Dinesh Kumar. “We expect that the expedition would foster a team spirit in us. The aim of the expedition is not just to conquer the peaks, but also to pay homage to the heights and learn about the nuances of nature from it,” the students said in unison before undertaking the expedition.
Spokesperson of BCS, Praveen Dharma, said, “BCS has a long mountaineering tradition which started with expedition to Leo Parigyal in 1999. The significant aspect of the flag off to Deo Tibba was that it coincided with the 154{+t}{+h} annual speech day celebrated on Saturday and the honours were done by old Cottonian and industrialist D C Anand, who was recently knighted by the French republic for improving diplomatic and business relations between India and France.”
BCS has the distinction of having Pargyal Mountaineering Club which was started by Colonel R L Dhaliwal in 1999 and the boys have scaled as many as eleven major peaks till now, sources said. Cottonians hold the distinction of having scaled many peaks with height of over 21,000 ft, including Mt Phawaranga and Mt Frey in Sikkim (in 2005), Mt Menthosa (2008), Mt Leopargyal (1999) besides Stok Kangrhi (in 2003) Bidhan Parvat (in 2003), Jaonli and Mt Bandarpunch (2012).
To commemorate the sesquicentennial celebrations, an expedition of 12 boys, along with two staff members, had scaled upto the base camp of Mt Everest and Kalapathar at 18,195 ft in 2009, they said.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Education / TNN / June 02nd, 2013
Karnataka and Maharashtra won two gold medals each in the sub-junior and 17th Challenger sprint national rowing championships here on Friday.
Karnataka’s T.K. Keerthana claimed top spot in the girls’ single sculls event in the sub-junior category, and the senior men combination of K. Shiva and T. Madhusudhan Gokul added a second gold for the State in the double sculls.
The Maharashtra sub-junior team won the boys’ pair in 1:48.46s, and the senior women clinched the challenger double sculls in 1:56.97s.
The finals of 10 events will be held on Saturday, the concluding day.
The results (winners only):
Boys: U-13: Double Sculls: West Bengal. Sub-junior: Pair: Maharashtra. Men: Challengers double sculls: Karnataka. Girls: Sub-junior: Single sculls: Karnataka. Pair: Andaman and Nicobar. Under-13:Double sculls: Assam.
DELIGHTED BUNCH: The Karnataka team which won the 64th Rangaswamy Cup senior National hockey championship in Bangalore on Thursday. / Photo: G.P. Sampath Kumar / The Hindu
Karnataka rode on Deepak Beijawad’s insatiable appetite for penalty corners to capture the 64th senior National hockey championship here on Thursday.
Karnataka has won this Rangaswamy Cup (donated by The Hindu group in 1951) for the first time since the inaugural edition in 1928.
At the floodlit KSHA Stadium, Beijawad (who has converted eight penalty corners and one penalty stroke in this tournament) pulled the host through with a brace, after the teams were tied at 1-1 at half-time.
The captain’s first goal came three minutes into the second-half, with a thunderous flick at the left post. Twenty minutes later, another penalty corner was awarded to Karnataka. This time, Uttar Pradesh had a plan to counter Beijawad. Diwakar Ram was positioned to man the left post, but the ferocity of the shot saw the ball thud into goal off Ram’s stick.
Earlier, an electric run by K.R. Umesh brought Karnataka the lead. Off a pass from Bijju Yirkal, Umesh dribbled the ball from just inside the half-line all the way into the ‘D’. A quick halt, followed by a reverse-flick, flew past the Uttar Pradesh goalkeeper.
A goal of equal quality brought Uttar Pradesh level. From the edge of the box, Imran Khan lifted his head for just a moment to take stock of his position, and then came down hard with a powerful hit.
The Beijawad show then began, and it was curtains for Uttar Pradesh.
In the 3rd-place play-off match, an instinctive goal by Victo Singh took Mumbai past Punjab in a match which was decided in a penalty shootout.
The Karnataka team received Rs. 1 lakh from L.T. Nanwani, the owner of World Series Hockey team Chennai Cheetahs, and R.K. Shetty, the IHF Chairman. The runner-up was awarded Rs. 50,000 by the same duo (in an individual capacity). The winner also received Rs. 1 lakh from the KSHA, who wished to honour the team for clinching this prestigious trophy for the first time in its history. A further Rs. 25,000 was presented to the team by KSHA office-bearer, N.S. Basavaraj.
3rd place play-off: Mumbai 2 (Upendra Pillay, Vikram Singh) bt Punjab 2 (Sanjeev Kumar 2) (Extra-time score: 0-0, Mumbai won in penalty shootout).
Individual prizes: Best goalkeeper: Sudhir Dixit (Mumbai), Best defender: Deepak Beijawad (Karnataka), Best half-back: Y. Nagasrinu (Karnataka), Best forward: Satwinder Singh (Punjab),Top goal-scorer: Victo Singh (Mumbai, 12 goals), Player of the championship: Diwakar Ram (Uttar Pradesh).
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport> Hockey / by Ashwin Achal / Bangalore – May 17th, 2013
Maradona’s former club will become the first Latin club to do this
Bangalore:
Club Atlético Boca Juniors, one of the premier football clubs in the world, Wednesday launched the first ever Boca Juniors Football School India (BJFSI) here.
Juniors, home to legendary football stars like Diego Maradona, Gabriel Batistuta, and more recently Carlos Tevez and Juan Roman Riquelme, will be the first Latin American football club to launch a football school in India. Boca Juniors is one of the most successful and popular football teams in Argentina, and one of the most successful in the world, having won 43 official titles to date. Internationally, the team has won 18 international titles.
Boca Juniors plans to take the BJFSI around the country with the first school being launched in Bengaluru. BJFSI will run the football school on an ongoing basis round the year and provide progressive training to the students through weekly classes following Boca Juniors methodology. All these classes would be administered by coaches from the Argentine club.
Additionally, there will be periodic football camps, customized school camps and Boca Juniors Chairman, Daniel Angelici was excited to bring the Argentinean style of football to India.
Angelici commented: “We are thrilled to bring BJSFI to India. Football is growing in popularity in India year by year and we strongly believe we can play a role in developing the sport. As a country, India not only has a wealth of young talented children who are extremely passionate about football, but a genuine desire to learn and apply new skills and knowledge.
“Our style of football is completely different to the rest of the world and we hope to pass this on to the young generation here. It needs to be positive, inclusive, structured and above all create a fun in safe learning environment in order to nurture young talent.
“Our style is more open and attacking, has flair and more entertaining to watch. The coaches in BJFSI will instill the same playing style to the students from an early age.
The first Summer Camp will be held June 10-14 at Ascendas ITPB Ground here for the aspiring footballers aged from 4 to 18. There will be an exclusive Corporate Camp for Parkites of Ascendas ITPB June 18 and 19.
Trainings for ongoing Football School will commence from July 13 at various centres in Bengaluru.
source: http://www.gulfnews.com / Gulf News / Home> Sport> Football / by IANS / May 15th, 2013
The national men hockey team’s core probables will start their training camp at the Netaji Subhas Southern Centre (NSSC), Bangalore on Thursday to prepare for the FIH World League Round 3 (Semi-Final) to be held at Rotterdam, Netherlands from June 13 to 23.
The camp will be on till June 4.
Indian men’s team performed well at the recently-concluded preparatory tour to The Netherlands, where it had defeated the national side twice and also played five games against top clubs of The Netherlands.
India qualified for the FIH World League Round 3 (Semi-Final) by winning all the matches of the Round 2 tournament held at Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium here in February.
The FIH World League Round 3 (Semi-Final) is a qualification tournament for the FIH Men’s World Cup 2014 to be held at The Hague, Netherlands.
Jude Felix, founder, Jude Felix Hockey Academy —R. Samuel.
Bengaluru:
Every morning at the crack of dawn, rain or shine, the children from St Mary’s Orphanage forget their woes and cares as they troop out onto the field brandishing their hockey sticks, feeling on top of the world. No matter what the world throws at them — and most of them have seen far too much — for 90 minutes every morning, their dreams seem within arm’s reach.
The children are coached by one of India’s most renowned hockey players, Arjuna awardee, Olympian, and former captain of the national hockey team, Jude Felix, founder of the Jude Felix Hockey Academy, a charitable trust that promotes hockey among underprivileged children.
Helping children had always been at the back of his mind, says Felix. “I didn’t have the money to do anything, but I wanted to teach them what I knew best.” The need to revive hockey among the youth was also growing — the sport’s glory was fading fast as cricket took over the streets of India.
It all fell into place through a chance remark four years ago. Felix, who wanted to sponsor a dinner at St Mary’s Orphanage on Christmas Day, told the then director, Father John Anthony that he would like to coach the children in hockey. “Father John loved the idea. It was nothing short of a miracle, really.”
A prominent group of philanthropists promised help and the academy spluttered to a start. But it didn’t last long. The group lost interest in the project and Felix was left in the lurch. “There was only one man who stood by me at the time,” said Felix. That man was Shanmugam P., who has worked with the underprivileged for 12 years. He helped the JFHA get back on its feet.
“We had no idea how to start a trust at the time, but we met some like-minded people who really played a big role,” said Shanmugam. “Jude was like a role model and mentor to us, we all looked up to him.”
Starting an academy was not the intention at the time. All they wanted to do was teach kids hockey, something they would never have had the chance to learn otherwise. The field adjoining Marianiketan School, where the children from the orphanage studied, was covered in rubbish, save for one small patch, where the practices began.
It took one month of gruelling hard work to level, clean and convert the field into one of the finest pitches in the city. The JFHA, which now has six trustees on its board, is fuelled entirely by goodwill. Volunteers donate water and juice during hockey matches, others donate banners and trophies. “We don’t take money, we just ask people to contribute in any way they can,” says Shanmugam.
Father John provided the budding team with a small kit room and friends helped collect equipment. Equipment was a tremendous challenge as it is expensive. Things looked bleak until JFHA received a contribution of a 100 hockey sticks from an anonymous donor.
“We still use those sticks and because of them, we have equipment for 200 children now,” said Shanmugam. Meanwhile, Felix’s old friends began to look him up as well. International hockey player Tushar Khandekar and his uncle Subodh donated 60 hockey sticks to the academy, which started out with about 40 children. “Manufacturers also stepped up because I had not collected royalties for using their equipment,” Felix said. “So our kids had the best shoes, the best hockey sticks and the best equipment by far.”
In time the school team started doing very well at tournaments and the boys got their first taste of victory. “We had two boys selected for the Sports Academy of India. One boy, Rajendra, represented the state in the sub junior level,” says Felix. Now, the children needed competition, to play against the best. “Our kids were never invited to the more prestigious hockey tournaments,” said Felix. That’s how the JFHA hockey tournament came into being two years ago.
Playing under floodlights, the children competed against teams from Singapore and a team from Ananthapur supported by the Spanish hockey team. “I have seen tournaments the world over and this is absolutely world class,” Felix says proudly.
Volunteers come in from the Community Involvement Programme in Singapore and twice a year from the Kelly School of Business to spend time with the children.
“The kids are so excited by the game and some of them are extremely skilful,” says Felix. Despite this, the discrimination they face is daunting. “They are smaller than the rest, and although that doesn’t matter, the bright people on our selection committee look for tall, athletic people, so our children lose out,” Felix added.
Even so, hockey is more than just a game to these children. “You can see the difference in the way they talk and carry themselves,” said Felix. He started out with a good thought and a small ambition, but has managed to create, even for a sport that has lost much of its popularity, a world class academy. “We don’t know what traumas these kids have seen, but sport is a miracle healer,” says Shanmugam.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Current Affairs / by Darshan Ramdev, DC / May 13th, 2013
