On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a video conferencing meeting with 40 elite sportspersons including cricket icons Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar & BCCI President Sourav Ganguly.
The video conference meeting marked the presence of iconic sportsperson from cricket fraternity as well as other athletes such as Indian team Captain Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Mary Kom on the current situation in the country due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
This is the first time that the Prime Minister has interacted with sports personalities in the 21-days-lockdown which was enforced on 24th March to control the spread of this deadly virus. Other prominent sports personalities that were the part of the video conferencing were PT Usha, Pullela Gopichand, Vishwanathan Anand, Hima Das, Bajrang Punia, PV Sindhu, Rohit Sharma, Virendra Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, and Cheteshwar Pujara.
“Today I interacted with India’s prominent sportspersons via video conferencing on the current situation arising due to COVID-19. Sports requires self-discipline, tenacity, teamwork and a fighting spirit these qualities are also essential to fight with and defeat novel Coronavirus”, PM Narendra Modi tweeted.
“From sharing the videos that underline the importance of fitness in one’s life, helping the poor and needy people to emphasize on social distancing as well as contributing in PM-CARES funds, our sportspersons are performing excellently towards making India free from COVID-19”, he added in another tweet.
During the video conference PM Narendra Modi asked the sportsperson to include five points in their message which they post on various social media platforms for people” ‘Sankalp” to fight the Pandemic, ‘Sanyam’ to follow social distancing, ‘sakaratmakt’ to maintain positivity, ‘Samman’ to respect the people who are fighting in the forefront in this battle including the medical fraternity, the police personnel, etc and ‘Sahyog’ at personal as well as national level through contribution to PM-CARES fund.
He also asked them to emphasize the importance of both physical and mental fitness and popularize guidelines released by Ayush Ministry.
The sportspersons praised PM Modi’s leadership in this challenging time according to a media report. They thanked him for ensuring that the frontline healthcare workers and police personnel involved in this battle get the respect they deserve for their selfless service for people.
They also discussed the importance of discipline, mental strength, following a fitness regimen and taking steps to boost immunity.
Earlier on Friday, PM came live on news channels and appealed people to gather for a unique exercise on April 5th at 9 pm to show they were together in the fight against Coronavirus. “On the coming Sunday, April 5th we will challenge the darkness of Coronavirus threat together. On April 5th, at 9 pm I need your 9 minutes. At 9 pm turn off your lights in your houses and light a Diya, candle, torch or flashlight for 9 minutes at your doors or balcony”, PM Modi said. The Prime minister said that this exercise will send out a message to all that nobody among the 130 crore Indians is alone in this fight against the deadly infection.
Let’s hope that with efforts of our unsung heroes who are fighting continuously against COVID-19 along with our cooperation we will beat this deadly virus soon and our life comes back to normalcy.
