Sports Minister M S Gill on Thursday flayed the 'casualness' of India's cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh for skipping the Padma Shri awards function and said the Ministry would soon issue a circular to ensure sportspersons treat national awards with utmost respect. Dhoni and Harbhajan were conspicuous by their absence at the Rashtrapati Bhavan ceremony, where they were expected to receive the award from President Pratibha Patil.
Sports Minister M S Gill on Sunday praised Bengal football team for their stupendous win against Punjab in the Santosh Trophy final but feels standard of the game in the country needs a lot of improvement.
Sports Minister M S Gill on Monday assured that the cases of sexual harassment that have plunged hockey and weightlifting into a moral crisis would be dealt with in a 'professional and impartial way'.
Sports Minister M S Gill on Sunday inaugurated the refurbished R K Khanna Stadium with the hope that the Indian tennis players would shine here and rake in the medals when the capital hosts the Commonwealth Games in October.
Barely a day after Force India's historic podium finish at the Belgian Grand Prix, a war of words broke out between Sports Minister M S Gill and Vijay Mallya on the government's refusal to acknowledge Formula One as a sport.
As political parties in Pakistan reacted sharply to the treatment meted out to the country's cricketers in IPL auction, the government said it has nothing to do with the sporting-cum-commercial exercise.
Sports Minister M S Gill on Monday opposed the Board of Control for Cricket in India's stance on the 'whereabout' clause of the World Anti-Doping Agency, saying cricketers should fall in line without cribbing.
Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi has catapulted to the top position in the SportzPower List 2009, while the once-powerful Lalit Modi and number one in 2008 dropped to fifth position. Union Sports Minister M S Gill dropped two spots in 2009 and is placed fourth. He is replaced by former Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sharad Pawar in the second place.
Countries participating in this year's Commonwealth Games, scheduled to be held in Delhi, should not worry about security, said Sports Minister M S Gill on Monday, assuring that India will deliver an incident-free event.
Union Youth Affairs and Sports Minister M S Gill on Wednesday said that India should not be thinking of hosting Olympics Games in the near future.
Olympians Joaquim Carvalho, Gurbux Singh and Gavin Fereira on Thursday hit out at the Indian Olympic Association for forming Hockey India, a unified body embracing the men's and women's units, in an 'undemocratic manner'.
The controversial SMS game introduced in the Indian Premier League, which evoked strong criticism for promoting to gambling, was on Tuesday discontinued with the games' inventors taking note of the apprehensions expressed by Sports Minister M S Gill and many former cricketers. Although no pressure was put for the game to be withdrawn, the organisers decided to stop it with immediate effect.
Unhappy with the Sports Authority of India's flip-flop over the dope testing episode involving weightlifter Monika Devi, Sports Minister M S Gill on Wednesday appointed former Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy to inquire into all aspects of the matter. Krishnamurthy has been asked to submit his report within a week, sources in the Sports Ministry said.
Raul, Fabio Cannavaro, Ruud van Nistelrooy and fellow Galacticos descending in India to weave magic on carpet does not sound daydreaming anymore with Real Madrid President Ramon Calderon Ramos writing to Sports Minister M S Gill, seeking a passage to India. Gill has reacted by promptly writing to his cabinet colleague and All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, seeking to discuss the next course of action.
Sports Minister M S Gill on Saturday denounced the SMS game introduced in the Indian Premier League in which fans make ball by ball predictions for cash prizes and said it amounts to gambling. The game has been widely criticised by cricket experts and the Board of Control for Cricket in India has been accused of promoting betting through it.
M S Gill, V Narayanasami, Jitin Prasada, Raghunath Jha, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Santosh Bagrodia and Rameshwar Oraon were on Sunday inducted into the Union Council of Ministers. Congress president Sonia Gandhi said that she had wanted her son and All-Indian Congress Committee general secretary to become a minister, but he refused.
The Union Council of Ministers will be expanded on Sunday with the possible induction of Jyotiraditya Scindia and Raghunath Jha even as Minister of State for Personnel Suresh Pachouri resigned from the government ahead of the exercise. Besides Scindia and Jha, both Lok Sabha members, names doing rounds for possible ministerial berths include M S Gill, Supriya Sule, V Hanumantha Rao, and V Narayanaswamy.
Sports Minister M S Gill on Tuesday praised the fighting spirit of the Indian hockey players and said they should not feel "disheartened" for their 1-2 defeat in the final of the Punjab Gold Cup against the Netherlands.
The pension of medal winners in international competitions, like the Olympics and Asian Games, has been doubled with effect from July 1, the Sports Ministry announced on Thursday. As per the revised rates of pension, medalists at the Olympic Games will get Rs 10,000 in place of Rs 5000 and gold medalists at the World Cup/World Championships in Olympic and Asian Games disciplines will draw Rs 8000 instead of Rs 4000 per month.
Sports minister M S Gill on Wednesday provided men's hockey in the country a new lease of life by upgrading it to the 'Priority' category, along with seven other disciplines. He also named former Olympians Ajit Pal Singh and Zafar Iqbal as 'Government Observers' in the selection committee of the Indian Hockey Federation.
Sports minister M S Gill on Wednesday declined to comment on Sachin Tendulkar's pullout from the Olympic Torch Relay in New Delhi on Thursday, saying the withdrawal was his own decision. "It's Sachin's choice," Gill said when asked to react on the cricketer's pullout. Tendulkar pulled out of the relay after his Indian Premier League (IPL) team, Mumbai Indians, physio A Ijaz advised him to skip the event to avoid aggravating a groin injury.
A 42-member support staff will accompany the contingent for the August 8-24 Games.
With the ghost of doping returning to haunt Indian weightlifting, Sports Minister M S Gill has taken strong exception to the latest case involving Kavita Devi and called for a review meeting to discuss the menace. After weightlifters let down the nation at the Athens Olympics and the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Gill does not want to take any chances ahead of the Beijing Games in August.
Indian Hockey Federation chief K P S Gill lashed out at Sports Minister M S Gill for suggesting that younger administrators should head sports federations, saying first the sports minister should be a younger person.
After taking over the ministerial reins, Gill said successfully staging of the 2010 Games is his priority. 'Now that we have been entrusted with the responsibility of hosting the Commonwealth Games, we have to make sure that it proves a big success,' Gill said.
According to RS members, these polls distort the election process.
New US law that asks Sikhs to remove turban before immigration check has sparked a row in Parliament.
He faces a maximum punishment of ten years imprisonment.
India needs to examine some way in which, assuming that there is either no vaccine or a delay in administering it to everyone, voting can be made safer, notes Aakar Patel.
'Retired people get EC posts for six years and go all out to help the Congress. After their term in the EC, like M S Gill, they eye for a Rajya Sabha nomination as an incentive,' he said.
Jagdish Chhokar, founder-member of the Association for Democratic Reforms says there should be a law to regulate the functioning of political parties.
'The EC is a sacred institution.' 'In the last few years, more than once, we have found the EC bending over backwards to accommodate the government.'
'The only forum for resistance and dissent has become the university.' 'Free thinking is the right our brave students have been demanding.' 'As another round of violence and hatred against 'anti-nationals' begins, all of us, whether or not we agree with their views, should support and defend them,' says Aakar Patel.
'India's election process is smoother, more efficient, more credible, cheaper to conduct and quicker to deliver than any other large democracy, including the United States. It seems to me that the election process is getting better with each passing year and it is something all Indians can be very proud of,' says Aakar Patel.
For successive governments the Election Commission remains a 'holy cow', where unhealthy precedents are allowed to be nurtured since Independence, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Kamal Nath said Sonia Gandhi spoke with him again after she received the letter and told him that 'well if this is your reason, fine'.
In an attempt to corner the Centre, the Opposition raised the issue of the Indian Army's involvement in the Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living event.
The leadership styles of the two Gandhis being different, the party appears to be pulling in different ways. While Sonia Gandhi, the longest-serving Congress president, seems more predisposed to holding the government accountable on issues of probity, the younger Gandhi is more keen on taking up battles that ensure immediate victories.
'Mary just stopped talking to me. Maybe she did not like the fact that she was the gold medallist, but it was me (Sarita), not her, who was getting all the attention.'
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