Turf 2012 - Global Sports Summit @ FICCI

"If you love yourself, you will definitely love Sports"

An animated Mr. Badal at Turf 2012

And when you do so, you find yourself amongst the privileged few, attending the 'Turf 2012- Global Sports Summit in New Delhi at FICCI. As a Sports professional, I always find it enlightening to hear the views of the top brasses of the Sports fraternity, for upon these people rest the future of the Sports Industry in India. When the panelist comprises of eminent personalities like Mr. Aloke Malik( MD, ESPN Star Sports), Mr. Sukhbir Badal(Minister of Sports, Punjab), Mr. Scott Hartley(Director, Press Red, UK), Ms Indu Puri(Arjuna Awardee & Former Table Tennis player) and many others, the discussion tends to be very informative and interesting.

Punjab has long been the Sports hub of India, with top Sport-person in many discipline emerging from this state. No wonder Mr. Badal is an enterprising politician and a sports person at heart. The plans they have chalked out for the development of the State for Sports are amazing. The minister became very emotional when speaking and talked about how we need to change the mindset of the people by encouraging parents to send their kids into sports and nurture their talent from a young age. He also laid stress on infrastructure development and the need to sustain it. Citing anecdotes from his life, he kept the audience enthralled with his vision and mission for Sports sector as a whole.

Another good initiative which I came across was the 'Marks for Sports' campaign, which has been started by NDTV & Nirmal Lifestyle MD - Dharmesh Jain. Sports has been a great source of entertainment since the Roman age(nothing could be more amazing than watching the Gladiators fight).  This campaign might as well be the motivation students need to take up sports. If people are fit, they will play sports. Mr. Jain said that a 10 year old vision was needed to develop Sports into a formidable force in the country and learn from countries like New Zealand & United Kingdom.

But, the best speech came from Ms Indu Puri, who is a Former Table Tennis champion and an Arjuna Awardee. She was very clear in her thoughts saying that we need to build-maintain and then use the infrastructure. 'If the stadiums are lying empty and are not allowed for public, what is the use of such facilities?' She was also in favour of Schools opening the playground in the afternoon for neighboring children to come and play. Another interesting point which she made was that, even if an athlete has to play in sub-standard condition, he/she should not be disheartened because when they would be competing at other places, the conditions would be very different. Experienced words coming out of a true player.

'Inactivity is a bigger killer than smoking globally' said Mr. Hartley from Press Red who had handled the London Olympics in 2012. He also threw light on the commercial aspects of the game and answered questions on how the infrastructure was maintained after building by keeping a portion of the building fund as a reserve, which could be used as an annual maintenance charge.

It was an amazing two days at the Turf 2012 where I met plethora of Sports personalities from the industry and also attended the exhibition on Sports which gave us an insight into the technical aspects. All in All two amazing days at FICCI.