Indian Boys qualify after defeating Sri Lanka

Basketball U16 FIBA ABC Qualifiers: Indian Boys qualify after defeating Sri Lanka

India’s U16 boys’ basketball team faced no troubles in brushing aside the Sri Lankan squad on their way to a 122-34 rout at the Indira Gandhi Stadium in Delhi on Wednesday, August 3rd. India won the qualifying round and secured their place in the 2nd U16 FIBA Asia Basketball Championship, which will be held at the Nha Trang City in Vietnam from October 18-28th.

It was India’ second successive rout in this competition – after the boys’ blazed to a 98-point win against Nepal on Tuesday, the finalists of the qualifying round, Sri Lanka, failed to provide much more of a challenge. The Indian camp saw a dominating breakout game by prodigious young 7-footer Satnam Singh Bhamara, who was unstoppable on the offensive end of the floor, going for an efficient 28 points. India’s guards played fierce defense, and on the other end, the Punjabi duo of Kushmeet and Love Neet Singh scored a lot of points by outrunning their opponents.

Even after holding to a 64-19 lead at halftime, India didn’t ease their full-court press, forcing Sri Lanka to commit several turnovers that led to easy baskets for the Indian youngsters. In the fourth quarter, Sri Lanka managed to slow the pace of the game a little by fouling the Indian players and sending them to the free throw line often, but the damage was already done, as India also held Sri Lanka down to just four points in the final period.

India were handed by winner’s trophy by Kenny Natt, the American coach of the Indian Senior Men’s side. Sri Lanka, who defeated Nepal 77-54 in their first game on Monday, won the second place trophy, handed to them by NBA India’s Head of Basketball Operations, Troy Justice.

Final Score

India (Satnam Singh Bhamara 28, Kushmeet Singh 26, Love Neet Singh 12, Ajay Pratap Singh 11) bt. Sri Lanka (Kenneth W 12, Praveen Ganlath 10) 122-34 (35-11, 29-8, 35-11, 23-4).

High inflation due to external factors: Pranab

To prove ones perfect,FM attributes high prices to external factors, with eight times hike on fuel rise now the government on Thursday said it is working to moderate food inflation to 5 per cent from over 8 per cent now without sacrificing growth.This remarks is to a debate in Lok Sabha on price rise, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee gave details of various steps the government had taken to rein in inflation but did not outline any further strategy in this regard.Growth with moderate rate of inflation... that is what we want to achieve," Mukherjee said in nearly an hour-long reply which left NDA "disappointed" and was followed by a walk out by the BSP, SP, BJD, AIADMK and Left parties.Through a division, the House negative the amendment moved by CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta which wanted a reference to the "failure" of the government to curb food price inflation.Later, it adopted the motion by voice-vote.Pointing out that the food inflation has come down from 22 per cent in February, 2010 to 8.3 per cent in July this year, he said, "I am not accepting it. This is not the bench mark."
Mukherjee said the comfortable level of food inflation is five per cent but six to seven per cent can be tolerated.Responding to the demand for removing subsidy on diesel used by passenger cars, Mukherjee said, "We can accept the suggestion and try to work out what mechanism could be found out so that this section (passenger cars owners) are not subsidised."