Akshay Kumar supports 'Khelo India'; urges people to play

New Delhi: The 'Khiladi' of Bollywood Akshay Kumar has supported 'Khelo India' a landmark initiative to foster holistic sports development in the country, by taking the pledge and urging everyone to come forward and play.Commenting on his association with the pioneering initiative, Akshay said on Tuesday, “I am delighted to see that for the first time ever, through the 'Khelo India School Games' and the broadcast of it on the Star Sports network, young sporting talent is being recognised and rewarded instantly. But this is only the beginning and I hope that the 'Khelo India' movement gets the right momentum through your support. So, come forward and support the Khelo India movement. Saath mein hai Hum, Khelo India!'

Akshay, a sports enthusiast himself, was present at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi on Tuesday to support the young talent thronging the capital from across the country to be a part of the inaugural 'Khelo India School Games'. He interacted with the young sports stars and even tried his hand at badminton with one of the participants, Maisam Meiraba Luwang, a 16-year-old youngster from Manipur.

While interacting with Star Sports, the official broadcasters of 'Khelo India', Akshay emphasised on the need of quality broadcast to reverberate the unifying message of 'Khelo India' across the country. Underlining the need of inspiring youngsters in India to go out and play, he stressed on the importance of 'Khelo India' reaching far and wide via Star Sports and how it is a key catalyst towards driving young India to playfields and shaping us a formidable sporting nation in the near future.

Sanjay Gupta, Managing Director, Star India said, “We are delighted to partner with 'Khelo India', an initiative by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to enable the development of sporting culture amongst youth in India. It is the youth of India that will take sports to greater heights. We are certain that with a youth icon like Akshay lending his voice to the Khelo India pledge will inspire millions of youngsters to come forward to adopt sports in a way like never before, further contributing to help India realize its dream of becoming a global sporting powerhouse in the near future.”

Star Sports, with their vision of fostering a comprehensive, multi- sports ecosystem in India has come together with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to simultaneously produce and broadcast 'Khelo India School Games'.The 'Khelo India School Games' are being broadcasted across the Star Sports network, on Star Sports 1, Star Sports 1HD, Star Sports First and Hotstar.

With over 3500 athletes, 1250 officials and over 800 volunteers coming together over the course of nine days, the magnitude of 'Khelo India School Games' is unprecedented. There are 199 gold medals, 199 silver medals, 275 bronze medals up for grabs across 16 disciplines.The opening ceremony of the programme was held in the national capital on January 31in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The programme was concluded on February 8th. (UNI)