Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Congrats, Saina!' that was published in Newsband

Congrats, Saina!

The 25-year-old Saina Nehwal’s feat of becoming the first Indian woman shuttler to reach the No.1 position in the world is a stupendous achievement. Very few Indians have reached the pinnacle of individual sports. In badminton, only Prakash Padukone had reached the No.1 mark, more than three decades ago. Saina thus comes on par with chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand and boxer Mary Kom, both of whom reached the top positions in the respective individual sports.

It is Nehwal’s persistent competitiveness that has allowed her to remain in the top echelons of her sport, and helped her reach the summit at an opportune time. Saina Nehwal has made us all proud. This achievement is inspiring and exceptional. The reason for it being exceptional is that it happened in spite of lack of adequate sporting infrastructure, the general absence of a sporting culture, and the domination of cricket in media coverage of sports in our country.

Congratulations to Saina Nehwal for achieving the numero uno position and all Indians should cherish the moment. The feat is rare and the fact that it came after three decades makes it more stupendous. It also proves that persistent hard work and dedication never goes in vain.

Cricket is most popular among Indians than any other sports. To promote other sports government has to create infrastructure with free access or minimal charge to all section of society and organize competition on regular basis at school & district level to national level. This will generate interest in other sports among people. Our performance will improve at international level. People will start following other games too.

Saina Nehwal and so many others like Mary Kom have braved so many obstacles both at home from interfering relations, dehumanising conditions in sports academies and so forth. Given the opportunity, encouragement and good sports academies, our girls can perform real well. They can put India on the world map.

Saina’s hardwork, dedication coupled with her skill has made her a force in world badminton. She has mounted on Everest of Badminton. Her example is bound to inspire generations of young badminton players. Her Coaches too deserve compliments for shaping her career.

Media indeed plays a pivotal role in branding a sport. And a sport is branded based on the champions it produces. The inception of champions blooming in other sports should definitely catch media attention and should shed more light on individual sports as well. The more other sports reach the masses, the greater are the chances of its popularity. So Indian media should diversify its interest and start publishing more of other sports. The sports culture should BOOM in India!!