Ordinance for India's first Sports University in Manipur accepted

Big news coming in yesterday as the much awaited plans for a sports University in Manipur finally seemed to be taking some sort of shape. The Union Cabinet yesterday approved an ordinance which was aimed at setting up the country's first national sports university in Manipur. Tucked into the far corners of North East India, Manipur has for a long time been considered one of the states that are full of untapped talent when it comes to sports in India. Be it football, boxing, weightlifting or even wrestling, over the years the state has given us heroes to look up to and perhaps this is why, the location of the impending sports university matters as much as its intent.

According to PTI, "A void exists in the sports environment of the country in various areas such as sports science, sports technology, high performance training," is what the exact wording of the bill in question was.

No one can question the authenticity of this statement especially given the fact that despite being one of the most populous countries in the world, India has failed to make a make a mark on most major world level tournaments. Despite having almost half of our population in an age group most conducive for development in sports, it remains a talent pipeline that is seldom tapped. The bill in question for the Sports university had been introduced in Parliament on August 2017. On Wednesday, in a Press Conference to brief reporters on Cabinet decisions, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad assured that things will begin to move quicker once the President signs the ordinance. That would be the second step in ensuring that things quickly snowball into something productive.