Article highlights success of India's sport and development investments

An article on thestar.com written by Randy Starkman highlights the Indian government's success in sport for development initiatives.

Starkman quotes veteran educators Vivek Ramchandani, who says, "The government of India suddenly woke up to the fact in a country with over a billion people, the number of Olympic golds is sadly lacking. They also realized that in a country like India, perhaps less than 10 per cent of the children have access to any form of organized sport."

Ramchandani, a fervant believer in the power of sport for development, shared various success stories with the star.com.

"In one village, a young athlete approached her coaches to say she couldn't play anymore because she was getting married. She was 12. The community sport coaches started canvassing public opinion in the village.

They found that, ‘Yeah, well traditionally people are getting married at that age but they didn't seem to think it was such a great idea anymore. The village council surprisingly agreed. From what I understand the village passed a decree saying 'we shouldn't marry off girls in this village until they're at least 18'.

The word spread, neighbouring communities heard about this, the community sport groups got together and spread the message. From what I understand, there are now several villages in the district doing the same thing. These are the kind of stories that are coming out."