Tendulkar, Anand, Gopichand, excluded from All India Council of Sports

India’s batting great Sachin Tendulkar and chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand on Tuesday (January 21) were excluded from the All India Council of Sports (AICS) whereas cricketers Harbhajan Singh and Krishnamachari Srikkanth were included as its new panel members.

The AICS, formed by the Narendra Modi government in 2015, is an advisory panel which deliberates on matters relating to the development of sports in the country.

During the committee’s first tenure of December 2015 to May last year, Tendulkar was drafted into the committee as a Rajya Sabha MP along with Anand. The committee’s original strength size has also been cut down from 27 members to 18 in its second term.

In the committee’s second term, Indian badminton’s chief national coach Pullela Gopichand and former football captain Bhaichung Bhutia have also been omitted.

According to sources, Tendulkar and Anand attended very few meetings and hence weren’t considered to be included again. In the case of Gopichand, it’s being said that he was busy with preparing Indian shuttlers for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and could not attend the panel’s proceedings.

Among the new members on the panel track and field legend PT Usha, archer Limba Ram, mountaineer Bachendri Pal, Padma Shri Awardee para-athlete Deepa Malik, will feature alongside shooter Anjali Bhagwat (shooting), footballer Renedy Singh, and wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt.