On Friday, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting via video conference with 40 elite sportspersons of the country including the Indian skipper, Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Mary Kom on the ongoing situation in the country due to the coronavirus pandemic. This is the first time that the PM had an interaction with sports personalities since the 21-day lockdown was enforced on March 24 to control the transmission of the novel virus.
The other prominent people included PT Usha, Pullela Gopichand, Vishwanathan Anand, Hima Das, Bajrang Punia, PV Sindhu, Rohit Sharma, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, and Cheteshwar Pujara.
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Tweeting about the same, PM Modi wrote: “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. From sharing videos that reaffirm the importance of fitness, helping the poor and needy, emphasising 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.”
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. #IndiaFightsCorona https://t.co/OuWHisdaVX
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 3, 2020
From sharing videos that reaffirm the importance of fitness, helping the poor and needy, emphasising 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.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 3, 2020
PM Modi showered praises on the sportspersons for “stellar performances on the field,” in their respective sports and told them that they now they have an important role to play in boosting the morale of the nation as well as spreading the message of social distancing along with asking people to continuously follow advisories given during the lockdown.
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The Prime Minister also asked them to include the following five points in their message to people: ‘oath’ to fight the pandemic, ‘patience’ to practice social distancing, maintaining ‘positivity’, giving ‘respect’ the frontline soldiers in this battle including the medical fraternity, the police personnel, etc and ‘cooperation’ at a personal level as well as at national level through contribution to PM-CARES fund.
PM Modi also asked them to highlight the importance of both physical and mental fitness and also popularize guidelines released by AYUSH Ministry. The veteran sports stars praised PM Modi’s leadership in such a crucial time, according to a Press Information Bureau release.
