India: Commonwealth Games: shooting competitions

[seamusTX]

India is currently the host of the Commonwealth Games, which, for the countries that participate, are nearly as important as the Olympics.

India is mopping up the shooting competitions. This is ironic for a country where ordinary citizens can legally own only air rifles and shotguns.

A young lady named Lajja Gauswami from Gujarat state won a silver medal at the games and is now a hero in her home town. The state government is planning to build a rifle range named after her.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 760815.cms" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.ndtv.com/article/commonwealt ... tion-57211" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A lakh is 100,000 Indian rupees, worth about US$2,200. For comparison, US$20,000 is considered a pretty good annual income in India.

- Jim

[ELB]

I read about her earlier this year. There are some efforts to turn India's anti-gun stance around, and her performance has provided some inspiration for it, I believe.

http://www.abhijeetsingh.com/arms/india/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.gunowners.in/news/10-gun-own ... ebate.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(This link is to the site of India's version of the NRA)

As always, there are those who see the gun as the problem, not the corrupt political process that surrounds it, or the people inclined to do evil things... She even cites these in her article, but then decides the way to deal with it is to, of course, make things harder for people who actually follow the law...
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/50 ... trol_india" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ELB]

'nother one:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... ailarticle" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BTW, I think an Indian shooter got a Gold Medal in the last Olympics, as well.

[seamusTX]

BTW, I think an Indian shooter got a Gold Medal in the last Olympics, as well.

I don't follow this stuff fanatically, but the Indians have been doing pretty well in a number of sports, which might be expected from a country with a population of about 1 billion.

Ironically, the small country of Singapore snagged 31—count 'em—31 medals at the Commonwealth Games, 14 in the shooting sports.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 12/1/.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim