Youth festival: ‘Heartening’ participation at union council games

Minister says prisoners winning in the competitions would get remission.

LAHORE:

“Nearly 3 million people have participated in the first two legs of the Punjab Youth Festival,” Minister for Sports, Education and Youth Affairs Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan said on Thursday.

He was addressing the newsmen at a press conference at the National Hockey Stadium.

He said in 2012, the festival had entered the Guinness Book of World Records for mass participation of over 3.3 million people. Sports Board Director General Usman Anwar was also present.

He said this year, neighbourhood and village level participation had been recorded at over 1.8 million. He said out of those, 1.2 million people had participated at union council level.



Mashhood said the 10-day activity of at union councils commenced on January 5.

“Participation in Lahore division was the greatest. Nearly 350,000 youngsters exhibited their skills in different activities.”

He said 30 competitions were held at union council level.

He said apart from sporting events like arm-wrestling, athletics, badminton, billiard, cricket, tug-of-war, volleyball, bodybuilding, football, fun race and weightlifting, naat, qirat, cooking, family dressing, healthy baby, kitchen gardening, debate, essay writing, singing and painting competitions were held.

Mashhood said the festival had revived a sporting culture in Pakistan.

He said a survey of government lands to be converted into sports grounds had been completed.

He praised the media for the coverage of the festival.

“The media has played a positive role in portraying a soft image of the country,” he said.

He said sporting events were also being held in jails to encourage participation of prisoners in healthy activities.

He said sentences of prisoners who had won in competitions would be reduced.

He said 11 committees had been formed to ensure transparency. He said the government would welcome Transparency International’s audit of the activities.

Songs and painting  competitions

Songs and painting competitions were held at union council level at Government Girls High School on Napier Road.

Dozens of students participated in the contests.

The national songs competition was won by Maha Anwar of Quest High School in Shahdara. Hafiza Ateera Mohsin of Government Secondary High School in Shah Jamal stood second and Rida Shaukat Ali from Government High School in Tajpura was third.

Muhammad Bakhtawar of Society Public School of Mughalpura won the painting competition.

Fatima Javed of Quest High School in Shahdara secured the second position and Saman Taseer of Government Girls High School in Samanabad was third.

Government High School Principal Samina Almas distributed prizes among the winners.

Ziaul Mustafa of Government High School in Gulberg won the naat competition among boys.

Muhammad Saqib Jamil of Qazi Grammar School in Chungi Amar Sidhu was second and Haider Ali of Government High School Chung was third.

Saher Naqvi of Government Girls High School Tajpura stood first among girls. Meshura Rashid was second and Rida Arshad third.

Mini-marathon Race

A mini-marathon was organised at Samanabad Town in the last event of the Punjab Youth Festival in the union council phase on Thursday.

Farrukh Bajwa won the race which started from Gulshan-i-Ravi’s Wasa Mor and concluded at Moon Market Park.

Basit Hameed and Bilal Arshad finished second and third respectively.

Rana Asad, brother of Rana Mashhood Ahmed, was the chief guest.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2014.