Anando Sangbad Live: Aditya School of Sports, popularly known as ASOS organised a panel discussion, moderated by Boria Majumdar to initiate a dialogue, celebrate and further promote the participation of women in sports, in the month of March that celebrates International Women’s Day, in the presence of Anirban Aditya, the Chairman of Aditya Group, Roshni Aditya, the Managing Director of Aditya Group along with Mehuli Ghosh, the renowned Indian sport shooter, Saheli Dhar Barua, the well-known chess player with the current world rank of 31738, Rutuja Pawar, the Strength and Conditioning Coach of ASOS Residential Academy and the female footballers from Khelo India on Wednesday, March 24th 2021 at Press Club.
ASOS has been diligently working towards the cause of developing and redirecting the focus towards Sports in Bengal for the past few years and is the only accredited Football Academy by Khelo India in Eastern India. In a short period of time, they have already created a significant impact in Cricket and Football by going into an agreement with Cricket Association of Bengal for 15 years wherein they shall take care of the running and maintenance of Bengal’s first Cricket Stadium built by ASOS, recently named after the legend- Diego Maradona ASOS Cricket Stadium.
Aditya School of Sports has tied up with Joydeep Karmakar Shooting Academy and Rahul & Dola Banerjee Sports Foundation, while also partnering with NBA Basketball School, India; La-Liga Football Academy, India, while their Cricket Academy students in this short span of time have won multiple tournaments and some have also made it to the Bengal team under different age levels.
With only 30% of women in India actively engaging in sports, ASOS aims to provide the foundation of any sport, beginning right at the grass root level with the primary goal being an increased interest or response in participation of children from diverse backgrounds, regardless of their gender as ASOS views sports as an essential element of learning and education, especially since the physical activities constituting the various sports have been proved to be great motivators in enhancing the spirit of learning and leadership, especially amongst children.
Utilizing the sprawling 30 acre campus at Barasat now hosting a CBSE affiliated co-ed school, an international size cricket and football ground, the former of which is now also approved by BCCI to host top level matches and the latter of which has already hosted I-League U15 matches and is all set to host the upcoming IFA Shield matches too, ASOS is more than prepared to take up the challenge of bridging the gap between the unbalanced ratio of men and women in sports.
Speaking of the current status of women in sports, Chairman of Aditya Group, Mr. Anirban Aditya says, “I believe that the recent success of Indian sportswomen in the global sporting arena should be utilised as a springboard to promote the sustainable participation of young girls in sports. A child should have the ability to balance both academics and some extra-curricular activity like sports. Women are immensely strong, and we will try our best to encourage more women in Bengal to take part in sports.”
Mehuli Ghosh, renowned Indian sports shooter added, “Performance of women in sports is great and deserves more recognition worldwide. The facilities and opportunities for women in sports have increased manifold. I am so honored to see ASOS building excellent infrastructure to motivate a greater number of women to actively take part in sports.”
Rutuja Pawar, the Strength and Conditioning coach of ASOS Residential Academy said, “We at ASOS try to provide all the necessary facilities for women to excel in sports. The passion for sports unites women from all parts of India and gradually converge the cultural diversities to one common goal of winning the match.”
Roshni Aditya, Managing Director of Aditya Group further added, “We always try our best to provide support and guidance needed to lead the enthusiastic women towards success.”
Indian sportswomen have never failed to make us proud by bringing back laurels to the country in a variety of sports, in spite of being consistently discouraged from pursuing careers in certain kinds of contact sports that are often rather physically demanding. Aditya School of Sports, on the other hand is creating a conducive environment for women in a diverse range of sports for them to be able to get the support they need to flourish, as they empower these women to break the existing gender-based barriers and make a positive difference by successfully challenging the pre-dominant restrictions of a patriarchal society.
As a matter of fact, ASOS , being the first and only accredited Khelo India football academy, has also recently had the honour of witnessing 3 girls from Aditya School of Sports, Barasat, namely Sushmita Tanty from Odisha, Naorem Priyanka Devi and S. Monika Devi from Manipur being selected to join the under 20 women’s national football team camp to be held in Jamshedpur which is a very significant step forward for ASOS in continuation to its commitment to grass root development of sports in this part of the country, simultaneously reinforcing the concept ASOS has always stressed on, i.e EduSports, wherein importance is given to the overall development of a student instead of a limited focus only on academics, which also eventually prepares the foundation of the students to become better professional sportsmen or sportswomen and make a successful career out of it.