Sportspersons Can be the Goodwill Ambassadors of Change: PM Narendra Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who interacted with Indian medal-winning athletes on August 16, requested them to become the ambassadors of change in society. India has undertaken a year-long celebration to mark the 75th independence anniversary of India starting 15 August 2021 till 15 August 2022.
The PM asked Indian athletes to undertake a drive on a Mission mode to promote sports and sporting activities. Sources told CNN News18 exclusively that the Prime Minister asked each athlete to focus on visiting 75 schools till the year 2023 where they would go ahead and share their experience of preparing for the big Olympic games highlight their achievements and inculcate a feeling of sportsmanship among the young students.
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It may also be remembered that in the last Parliamentary party meeting on 10th August Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the entire meeting to Olympics and sports and had asked his party MPs to promote sports amongst the youth on a mission mode for the next three months and to thereby adopt a particular sport and promote it in a big way.
The Prime Minister had said in that meeting that the journey of India’s Olympians who won a record seven medals in the recently concluded Tokyo games was an inspiration in itself and it was a journey what is talking about and worth letting the world know because in many cases athletes come from very poor or marginal backgrounds and have displayed stupendous grit and determination to stand on the podium winning laurels for the country.
With India’s run in the recent Olympics, the outlook of everyone including parents who initially thought that playing a sport was a waste of time for the children has seen a dramatic change in attitude and that is something which must be encouraged in a big way said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Also, the Prime Minister in the meeting on August 16 with the athletes focused on the importance of good nutrition to develop the human body and mind, especially in youngsters. The biggest challenge for a developing country like India remains to be able to eradicate malnutrition. PM sought the cooperation of the Olympians to be able to reach out to people of how important it was to do away with malnutrition and lay the foundation for a healthy nation.
POSHAN Abhiyan or national nutrition Mission was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on women’s Day in the year 2018 with an aim to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers. This flagship programme of the government brought the attention of the country towards the problem of malnutrition and aimed to address it on a Mission mode.
While responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha In the just-concluded monsoon session of Parliament, Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani had informed that a total of 9.27,00,00 severely acutely malnourished children between the age of six months to 6 years have been identified in the country till November 2020. Irani also informed the Parliament that 40 % of
such children came from India’s most densely populated state of Uttar Pradesh. Nearly half of the funds released to states under POSHAN Abhiyan remained unutilized.
Government data shows that the funds released between 2017 -2018 to 2020 -21 Stood at 5312.79 Cr However out of which only 2985.56 CR was utilised till 31 March 2021 which only accounted up to 56% of the funds being used
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