BHOPAL, 18 November 2005 — The third phase of 31st Indian Sports Festival for Women 2005-06 organized by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) kicked off yesterday at the Tatya Tope Stadium here.
Addressing a press conference Wednesday, Om Yadav, vice-chairman of M.P Sports Council, said Madhya Pradesh sports directorate is hosting this four-day sports festival. The disciplines of athletics, badminton and table tennis are included in this third phase in which about 1,000 sportswomen and officials from all over the country are entered. In the teams 28 players and four officials are likely to comprise the squad of each state.
Yadav revealed that these women games were started in International Women Year 1975 when the first nationals in the disciplines of hockey and volleyball were hosted by Madhya Pradesh and were held in Bhopal. Since then this has become part of sports annual calendar and is organized all over the country by government of India, he added.
Sports Director Sanjay Chaudhary said a budget of Rs1 million has been earmarked for the games.
To a query, Sports Joint Director Vinod Pradhan said that in the last edition of the games Kerala were crowned overall champions in athletics while Orissa were runners-up and West Bengal remained third. In badminton Andhra Pradesh notched up the top spot, Delhi were runners-up and Kerala came third. Madhya Pradesh were relegated to fourth place. In table tennis West Bengal paddlers powered their way to clinch the overall title while Karnataka and Uttranchal came second and third respectively, he added.
Meantime, the Indore police busted a cricket satta (gambling) den being run under the cover of a property broker’s office in Tilak Nagar area of the city yesterday afternoon and arrested six persons in this connection. The satta bets were on the India, Sri Lanka one-day international match being played at Baroda.
According to Additional SP (east) Rajesh Hingankar the satta operation was going on at the offices of Vardhaman Property Brokers at 123, Tilak Nagar, situated opposite the United Commercial Bank. Owner of Vardhaman Property Brokers Achal Jain, Pawan Khilji and Amar were the main bookies in the operation, while the other three assisted them. The accused told the police that yesterday was the first day of their satta operation here.
