Modi Convenes Videoconferencing With India’s Sports Icon

Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has on Friday spoke with 40 renowned sportspersons, including the BCCI president, Sourav Ganguly, and renowned cricketers like- Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar.

Duirng a meeting via video conference with all the India’s cricket icons, PM Modi spoke about the incumbent situation in the country due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Noticeably, this is the first time, when Modi interacted with the sports icons during the 21-day lockdown as enforced by the Union Government. The Lockdown was imposed on March 24 to contain the spread of the Coronavirus across the region.

Besides, others prominent people included PT Usha, Pullela Gopichand, Vishwanathan Anand, Hima Das, Bajrang Punia, PV Sindhu, Rohit Sharma, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, and Cheteshwar Pujara.

In his Tweet, PM Modi said, "Interacted with sportspersons via video conferencing on the situation arising due to COVID-19. Sports requires self-discipline, tenacity, teamwork and a fighting spirit. These are also required to defeat Coronavirus”.

While, in an another Tweet, Modi said, "From sharing videos that reaffirm the importance of fitness, helping the poor and needy, emphasizing on social distancing as well as contributing to efforts such as PM-CARES, our sportspersons are doing excellent towards making India free from COVID-19”.  

PM Modi also asked them to include the following five points in their message to people: 'sankalp' to fight the pandemic, 'sanyam' to follow social distancing, 'sakaratmakta' to maintain positivity, 'samman' to respect the frontline soldiers in this battle including the medical fraternity, the police personnel etc and 'sahyog' at personal level as well as at national level through contribution to PM-CARES fund.

PM stressed to highlight the importance of both physical and mental fitness and also popularize guidelines released by AYUSH Ministry.

Meanwhile, the sportspersons praised PM Modi's leadership in this challenging time, according to a Press Information Bureau release.

They also thanked him for ensuring that the frontline healthcare workers and police personnel involved in this battle get the respect they truly deserve for their selfless service.