Hockey is not our national game, says Sports Ministry in reply to an RTI query

http://m.indiatoday.in/story/hockey-not-our-national-game-sports-ministry-rti-query/1/211480.html

Courtesy: Mail Today
Hockey is not our national game, says Sports Ministry in reply to an RTI query
Piyush Srivastava
Lucknow, Thursday, August 2, 2012 | 16:43 IST

Children in school learn that hockey is the national game of India. It
is also there in any book of general knowledge. Even in competitive
examinations, an aspirant is expected to know that hockey is our
national game. But now the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports
has replied to an RTI query that India has not notified any national
game as such.

Ten-year-old Aishwarya Parashar had asked the Prime Minister's Office
(PMO) when the government of India had notified hockey as a national
game.

But SPS Tomar, Under Secretary, Union Ministry of Youth Affairs has
replied that there was no such record available in his archive.

"I haven't come across any official order or notification in the
ministry saying that hockey is our national game. It is known to be a
national game in general parlance," Tomar has stated.

"I had asked the government when hockey was notified as national game.
The question assumes significance in the backdrop of the fact that we
have been learning since Class I that hockey is our national game. We
attach this game with our nationalism and take pride in the fact that
Indian hockey team has been the most successful in the history of
Olympics. We have won eight gold, one silver and two bronze medals in
Olympics in past," Aishwarya said.

"Interestingly, the government of India website calls hockey our
national game but as per the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs, India
has no national game as such," she said.

Previously, Aishwarya, a Class VI student, had also brought to the
knowledge of the people that Mahatma Gandhi was never identified by
the Government of India as Father of the Nation.

In reply to her RTI query to the PMO in March this year, she was
informed that as per the public records in the National Archives of
India, there was no specific document to support the popular claim
that the government had bestowed on Gandhi the honour of Father of the
Nation

http://m.indiatoday.in/story/hockey-not-our-national-game-sports-ministry-rti-query/1/211480.html