AJAY MAKEN-SPORTS MINISTER AGREES TO BE PATRON OF CORPORATE GAMES INDIA

SECOND EDITION  OF CORPORATE GAMES – TO BE BETTER & BIGGER 

A press conference was held at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on 30^th August 2012  on Corporate Games .

After having successful introductory Delhi Corporate Games   in February 2012 at Sirifort Sports complex.

Participants  from ONGC,NTPC , Punj Lloyd , TCS ,DUPONT, ARI,BISLERI,HDFC BANK ( TOTAL of 27 Corporates )competed in 12 disciplines . Delhi Corporate Games is ready for its Second Edition from 22^nd to 25^th November 2012.

Corporate Games: The Corporate Games has been created to provide employees at all levels of businesses and organizations in all industry sectors, to experience the thrill and excitement of participating in a multi –disciplinary sports festival. Corporate Games have been staged annually in 53 cities of 25 countries .

Second Edition of the corporate games the multi-sports festival for businesses and organizations would be held in November 22nd-25th ,2012 at Siri Fort Sports Complex  (Badminton, Basketball, Billiards, Chess, Cricket (8a-side), Hockey, Soccer , Golf, Squash, Table Tennis and Tennis  and at  Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Running, Soccer , Cycling)This time there would be 14 sports disciplines. More than 1100 corporate employees from 60 Corporates & public sector undertakings as well as members of SIRIFORT Sports complex and Vasant Kunj Sports Complex would be competing in these games.

Mr. OP Bhatia informed the press that Shri Ajay Maken ,Minister of Youth affairs and Sports has consented to be  Games Patron ( India) of the Corporate Games.The minister has agreed to inaugurate the games on 22^nd November 2012 evening at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
Corporate Games CEO INDIA  Mr. OP Bhatia ,said in addition to first games participants we have got interests from organizations like ONGC ,HDFC Mumbai , HDFC Delhi , HCL Technologies ,SERCO ,Tata Power, GE (Energy) ,Barclays Bank , Barista Limited  , Tata Sky, Silver skills, PWC,ARI ,Arcelor Mittal, Genpact ,Apollo Munich ,SPML ,Jet Airways , ,HUGHES SYSTIQUE INDIA PVT. LTD, Firefox, NTPC, Sirifort Sports Complex to participate in the games. Plus Dialogue is on with another 30 organizations for participation .He added that biggest advantage of Corporate Games-- that it organizes competitions in different age-groups 19-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50 and above. Corporate Games follow rules of International Sports federations with some modifications to make the games more interesting and to finish the games in 3-4 days .He further added that Cricket is 8 member team with 3 on the bench for rolling substitution and each inning is of 10 overs.Similarly Soccer is game of 2 halves of 30 minutes each and all age-groups are mixed in the team games. In the Corporate Games medals are awarded to winners whereas points are given from first to eighth position and these points are then added to give a special trophy known as medalist award to the Corporate getting maximum points. This encourages Senior management of Corporates to train their players to win maximum medals .Another trophy known a Sports for Life Trophy is given to the company fielding  maximum number of sports persons.

Number of Newspapers has been reporting that doctors are saying that youth is falling prey to heart diseases, due to erratic food habit and lack of exercise. Please see latest INDIA TODAY , in which Dr Naresh Trehan a famous cardiologist, says that most of CEOs of Corporates ,are under stress and more than 15 to 20 % executives miss offices for 20 to 25 days in an year due to life style diseases   .More than 8 hours of sedentary jobs and lack of physical exercise and improper diet increases the risk of life style diseases ,in the age-group of 30-40 years. Corporate Games is an opportunity to come out and play and regularly keep yourself fit by regular exercise. Under our subsidiary scheme we are introducing, Do you play-- where youngsters can book online and they are provided opportunities to play on weekends, team games like basket ball and football and later we will also organize Badminton and Table Tennis.

Mr. K.P Singh Deo ,Former Cabinet minister and patron of Corporate Games in India emphasised ,” It is good that finally Corporate Games have been introduced in India .These games are prevalent world over for last two and half decades .In countries like Australia ,they conduct these games in three cities namely Sydney , Brisbane ,Melbourne .Purpose of these games is to encourage Corporate employees to practice regularly, game of their choice and come to compete with other Corporate employees with a view to retain life-long fitness and also inculcate good qualities of sports i.e. spirit-de-corps, will to win , Magnanimity in victory and defiance in defeat. Needless to say that sports helps to integrate organizations and create feeling of friendship and fraternity, accruing in general happiness of their employees which in turn improves productivity of the Corporates resulting in improvement in the bottom line. It will not be out of place to say that countries become stronger who have widespread sports culture among all age-groups. It is heartening that India has started improving its medal tally in Olympics ,by Winning six medals including 2 silvers though we had the potential to win few more medals. As senior Vice President of IOA, he added that we should now be striving to win about 15 medals in Rio games and more than 25 medals in 2020 Olympics.

Mr. A K Pandya, former Secretary Ministry of youth affairs and sports and Chairman of Organizing committee of Corporate Games, mentioned that Corporate Games at the world level also hold World Corporate Games once in 2 years and medal winners of each country are eligible to participate in World Corporate Games. While thanking friends from Media for their continuous support to promote concept of Corporate Games in India, he mentioned it would help to create sports culture as participants of Corporate Games, who may be young parents would certainly encourage their children to play for fun and play to win.

While concluding Mr. Bhatia thanked the sponsors Li Ning ,leading sports apparel company and Firefox-famous biking company.He further thanked press both print and electronic media for helping us to promote concept of Corporate Games which would cultivate culture of good health among the employees of the corporates and public sector undertakings.