India to play 7s in Fiji

INDIA'S national rugby team will feature at this year's Marist 7s tournament as its build up to the Honk Kong 7s tournament and the Commonwealth Games.

India's rugby coach and former Nasinu rep Usaia Biumaiwai says discussions were underway to bring his international team play against the best local club teams.

India is the 2010 Commonwealth Games hosts in September.

Biumaiwai said playing in Fiji would be a good build up to expose his players to the game.

He said the Fiji Rugby Union was aware of India's intentions and soon a decision would be made.

"Rugby is still developing in India and I'm arranging with FRU to bring a team over in March. I want to expose my players and get them to play against the local clubs in Fiji."

"This will be a build up to the Hong Kong and Commonwealth games. We're hosting the games and I want the India team to achieve an improved performance in front of its home crowd."

Biumaiwai left for India two years ago after spending some time in Thailand.

Rugby is minor sport in India.

"Cricket in India is like rugby in Fiji. Rugby is still developing and a lot of people in India are unaware that rugby is played in their country."

"I'm trying my best in developing the sport and I do believe this would be a good opportunity to impress the home crowd and draw their attention to rugby," he said.

"Playing against the Fiji club sides would be a boost and we hope everything comes out in our favour."

Britain satisfied with Commonwealth Games security

A delegation of security experts from Britain Thursday expressed its satisfaction with the security arrangements for the Commonwealth Games to be held in the national capital in October.

Four UK security experts visited Delhi Jan 11-13 for meetings with the Indian government and Delhi Police to discuss various aspects of security planning for the forthcoming 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and the 2012 London Olympics, the British high commission said here in a press statement.

The delegation had positive discussions with their Indian counterparts and found security planning for the Commonwealth Games was progressing well, given there are still nine months to go. The UK looks forward to working closely with the Indian authorities, organising committee and the Commonwealth Games Federation on such issues in the run up to the Commonwealth Games and the London Olympics, the statement added.

The Britain-India Summit in January 2008 had agreed for cooperation on security for major sporting events.

"As we are both hosts of major sporting events, India and the UK both have a lot to gain from this cooperation. We had some very good discussions. India has completed a lot of planning work in recent months," the statement quoted Jim Busby, Olympic and Paraolympic Specialist Operations of the Metropolitan Police Service, as saying.

Bolt will find it difficult to participate in CWGG: O'Brien

The fastest man on earth Usain Bolt will find it difficult to represent Jamaica in this year's Commonwealth Games, former American decathlete Dan O'Brien said. ''My advice is irrelevant but it's going to be a tough push for Bolt to run in the Commonwealth Games. He has taken part in the world championship followed by the Olympics and again the world championship. To do it year after year is difficult,'' the 1996 Olympic decathlon champion said here today. The three-time world decathlon champion, here as the event ambassador for this Sunday's seventh Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, said for the US athletes 2010 is a lean year but he would not be surprised if Bolt skips the Commonwealth Games to be held in October in Delhi. ''This is a Down Year for the US athletes.

He (Bolt) has had a heavy schedule and I can understand (if he skips CWG) his pushing forward for London (venue of 2012 Olympic Games),'' the one-time world champion of the gruelling ten-event athletic discipline said. The 44-year-old Oregon-born athlete, who clinched back-to-back world championship title in 1991, 1993 and 1995 before clinching the gold at the Atlanta Games, also hailed Bolt as someone who has the ability to transcend his sport. ''Bolt is great for the sport. He has the ability to transcend track and field like Tiger Woods has transcended golf and Michael Phelps has been able to do in swimming,'' O'Brien said. But the former world champion, who idolised British decathlon great Daley Thompson and US heptathlon legend Jackie Joyner Kersee, did not think much of Bolt's publicised plans to take up to 400-metre racing in future.

''Every great sprinter says he's going to move up (in the distance). But it's going to be hard for him to step up to the 400m which is not a cakewalk. To do it four or five times in a season is difficult,'' he said. O'Brien also ridiculed tennis champion Serena Williams's reluctance to undergo regular drug testing and said such tests in athletics has helped in improving the sport's image. ''It's ridiculous when someone like Serena Williams who earns 15 million dollars a year says it's inconvenient to give a drug sample.

In my career I used to be tested once a month and not once after I retired,'' he said. ''As far as I'm concerned I have a zero tolerance for performance-enhancing drugs and my coaches would have refused to train me had I been on drugs,'' the former athlete said.

Hindu party wants Commonwealth Games beef ban

India's leading opposition party wants a ban on beef at the Commonwealth Games later this year.

Rajnath Singh, a former president and senior member of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), wrote to Games organisers demanding beef be kept off the menu, media said.

"Cow is considered sacred in India," Singh wrote to Suresh Kalmadi, who heads the organising committee for the October 3-14 Games in New Delhi, DNA newspaper reported.

"The Commonwealth Games have become an important event where we should use every possible opportunity to highlight our cultural values and age-old traditions.

"By removing beef from the menu card, the organising committee would not only empathise with the popular sentiment, but also save the Games from agitations and other possible controversies."

Most Hindus worship cows and do not eat beef. Several states prohibit the slaughter of cows.

Some 6,000 competitors and 2,000 officials from 71 nations are expected for the Games.

Pune students design device to detect pollution near Village

Students at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, have designed a special device which will enable volunteers at the Commonwealth Games this October to collect primary data for transport emission around the Games Village.

The device is part of the System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research project, undertaken by the Ministry of Earth Sciences and IITM to keep a check on pollution during the October 3-14 event.

Project director Dr Gufran Beig of IITM said, “Emission by vehicles is a major contributor to air pollution. This calculator-size device will be given to students to record primary data to calculate vehicular pollution in and around the Commonwealth Games Village.”

According to Beig, the Rs 15-crore project is the first air quality-forecasting project to be conducted in the country.

Divided in three categories — trucks and buses, four-wheelers and two-wheelers — students will be able to record data such as the number of vehicles passing a particular point, the number of vehicles waiting for signal at a given moment, the duration for which vehicles halt at these signals, and timings when vehicular population is maximum, among others.

“This data will then be used as input for emission inventory that will help analyse air pollution, with parameters such as emission per minute and direction of air flow,” Beig said. “Along with this set-up, we will also analyse data such as increased emission levels due to generator sets during powercuts, increased carbon levels due to burning of fossil fuels in villages around Delhi, along with data related to vegetation cover in and around the city.”

The data will then be supplied to the Delhi government’s Environment department for further action to control emissions. Having started the project a year ago, IITM plans a mock drill three or four months before the Games, Beig said.