Badminton champion told to clean utensils

Shimla - A badminton champion, studying in class 12 of a government school in Sirmau district of Himachal Pradesh, was asked to clean utensils at the school's annual function presided over by state Health Minister Rajeev Bindal.

Aarzoo Thakur, a student of Government Senior Secondary School at Dadahu in Sirmaur and gold medallist at the National Women Festival - 2010 held in Agra, attended the function Tuesday, where she and a couple of other students were later asked to wash utensils, her family said.

'It's a high disregard for a champion,' her father Inder Singh Thakur told IANS Thursday over phone. Read More................Badminton champion told to clean utensils in Himachal

Get Weird India Updates by e-mail

No shuttlecocks! India cancel National Camp

India have scrapped a training camp for this month's Thomas and Uber Cup qualifiers because of a lack of shuttlecocks, as per the badminton officials.

The federation sent home over 30 players due to start training on Thursday, blaming the state-run Sports Authority of India (SAI) for not supplying the stock or allowing them to import.

The qualifiers are due to be staged in Vietnamese capital Ho Chi Minh from February 19-24. India, who qualified for the Thomas Cup finals last time, are in Group C with Japan and Pakistan.

"It is a very lackadaisical attitude," Badminton Association of India (BAI) president V.K.Verma told Reuters on Thursday. "They're supposed to provide shuttles, but are doing the game a great disfavour.

"We can't have our 30 best shuttlers, juniors and seniors, twiddling their thumbs with only five tournaments left to qualify for the Olympics."

Verma said the state agency had not even done the initial paperwork on a request forwarded six weeks ago.

The SAI chief Ratan Watal told the Times of India that supplies would be made soon and that bird flu in China were hindering imports.

Get Weird India Updates by e-mail