India, Australia Sports Partnership (IASP) launched

India and Australia have launched India-Australia Sports Partnership (IASP) with a vision of increasing cooperation in sports.

IASP was launched jointly by the visiting Australian Prime Minister Mr Malcolm Turnbull and the Union Minister for Youth Affairs & Sports Mr Vijay Goel in the presence of Sachin Tendulkar.

Under IASP, India and Australia will cooperate in four areas:

• Athlete and coach training and development,
• Sport science,
• Sport governance and integrity,
• Grassroots participation.

Under the framework of the new partnership, Victoria University and the University of Canberra will help India to establish a National Sports University similar to that of the Australian Institute of Sport.

Significance

IASP will help in facilitating the exchange of athletes, coaches, technical officials, sports scientists between India and Australia.

Recent initiatives of government

India wants to make sports as an important component of public health management and education.

To this end, Khelo India programme was launched by the government to develop a sporting culture at the grassroots level.

The government has also announced that it would launch National Sports Talent Identification and Development Portal shortly.

Apart from the above initiatives, the sports ministry is also planning to introduce sports as a compulsory subject in schools.

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