Indian women's hockey team midfielder Vaishnavi Vitthal Phalke hails from a small village named Asu in Satara, Maharashtra.
The change means that Panghal, an Asian Games gold-medallist in 49kg, will now have to move to 52kg, while Thapa and Kaushik will have to forego the 60kg division and move up to the newly-created 63kg. Thapa is a three-time Asian Championships medallist and a world bronze-medallist, while Kaushik won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games last year.
'You need hard work along with talent to reach exceptional heights.'
'We will be starting with the U17 league first, followed by the U15 and U13. There will be spotters in most of the games of U13 leagues, to identify talents.'
From a life built on challenges and studded with victories, India's beloved chess champion, Vishwanathan Anand plucks out a few important lessons.
Amandeep Lakra, the spirited defender of the Indian Junior Men's Hockey Team, is elated about making the cut to represent the nation at the upcoming FIH Hockey Men's Junior World Cup in Malaysia next month.
Legendary coach Arsene Wenger is set to visit India in the second week of October to finalise the setting-up of a central academy.
'Huge disappointment that we did not qualify for our third consecutive Olympics'
Tale of two sports shops and unfulfilled dreams of a former hockey player
Several women wrestlers wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the IOA and the ad-hoc panel running the WFI, requesting "fair trials" for Asian Games.
Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India (AKFI) on Wednesday washed its hands off the incident of the organisers of a state-level sub-junior girls' tournament allegedly serving food from a toilet in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur, saying the national body was not in any way involved in the staging of the event.
'The athletes who are there in SAI Bengaluru and Patiala will continue to remain there'
La Nina, construction worsen air quality; spike in respiratory ailments.
By comparing I.N.D.IA. with banned terror outfits, Modi has exhibited the kind of nervousness never ever associated with him even at the height of the Gujarat riots, and certainly since his prime ministerial days, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Linthoi scripted history by defeating Brazilian Bianca Reis in the women's 57kg category event final on Friday.
The Yoga Federation of India contended that the recognition granted to the National Yogasana Sports Federation is arbitrary and suffers from malafide intentions.
Four members of the Bengal Table Tennis girls team were physically assaulted at a guest house in Pondicherry.
Defending champion Viswanathan Anand will start his campaign with black pieces against Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the first game of the 12-round World Chess Championship in Chennai on Saturday. After declaring the 'FIDE World Championship Match-2013' open, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa picked the photograph of Anand from the first bowl and a 'black piece' from the other during the draw of lots for the match, to be held at Hyatt Regency hotel.
Indian boxing got the first glimpse of Dingko's talent at the 1989 sub-junior nationals in Ambala where he became a champion as a 10-year-old.
'Today's result has changed them, not just people in our community but for entire India, it's an inspiration. For a girl of Muslim community to do so well, it gives others, not just our community, confidence that our girls can also do this.'
'Everyone wants to get involved when there is success.' 'But what about guaranteeing it?' 'Making sure girls have the opportunity to succeed all the time?'
The 16-year-old from Gujarat was rewarded for last year's stellar run, which saw her win titles in three junior international tournaments. It enabled her rise three places and take the top position in the BWF junior rankings.
Kiren Rijiju, the Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports led the tributes for the champion pugilist.
Hockey India said it has drawn up a list of competitions both for the senior men and women's teams in the run-up to next year's Tokyo Olympics. The detailed plan involves playing a number of matches against top teams in the world.
Rejecting allegations of conflict of interest against Sushil Kumar, the Sports Ministry on Thursday defended the star grappler's appointment as a national observer for wrestling.
In a rare appearance together, India's top tennis stars led by World No 1 one doubles player Sania Mirza, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi will play an exhibition match in the capital on November 27 along with the legendary Martina Navratilova.
Madhya Pradesh's Aditya Joshi has become the first male junior badminton player from India to be ranked world No 1. Harshal Dani is another Indian who, at No 8, figures in the top ten of the junior rankings.
Deepika Kumari is a story of grits, guts and gumption.
The top official mentioned that having a women's team has been made a part of the licensing criteria for clubs.
Indian boxing's national observer Akhil Kumar sees nothing wrong in leaving out national chief coaches from the Commonwealth Games contingent but what irks him is the higher pay and greater importance given to the foreigners in the support staff.
'You have to get past the phobia that Math is difficult.' 'The brain is exercising when you do arithmetic.'
The Indian Badminton League has named Under-19 players for five of its franchises, in addition to those picked at the auction. According to IBL rules, each franchise had to pick an India Under-19 player, who will be the 11th player in the respective squads.
The 26-year-old artistic gymnast was included in India's CWG squad after he filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court when his name was initially omitted owing to a tussle between the Gymnastics federation and the Indian Olympic Association.
The man who has been accused of raping a national level basketball player almost a month ago has not been arrested yet by police in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan.
'Indian hockey will lose out on one of its most important nurseries of good hockey talent.'
The Government of India is set to appoint Hockey India's Director High Performance Roelant Oltmans as Chief Coordinator and High Performance Director for Indian Hockey.
Not focussing on grassroot development over the years has led to the players learning the basics only late in their career, says national coach Stephen Constantine.
At 12 years, seven months and 17 days, Dommaraju Gukesh is the second youngest Grandmaster of all time.
'From the beginning (I have told her) "Whatever it may be -- you are losing or winning -- on the ground you're not going to cry!" She never cried.' '"I don't want you to project that you are a loser. You are a winner".' Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com speaks to Leela Raj about her famous daughter, now in the West Indies for the women's T20 World Cup.
