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MUMBAI: News media company NDTV and real estate company Nirmal
Lifestyle have returned with the second season of Marks for
Sports campaign, which aims to create awareness about the
importance of sports in a child’s life.
To
give the campaign a boost, the parties have announced a Fittest
City contest involving six cities namely Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata,
Chandigarh, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The aim is to see which
city has the maximum number of people to cross the fitness
threshold.
Nirmal
Lifestyle chairman & MD Dharmesh Jain said that the aim
of the contest is to spread the fitness message. The contest
has various parameters like physical camps, surveys on health
habits, government statistics and testing the fitness level
of children.
“Our
aim is to change the way India thinks about fitness. We already
have tie ups for homes with companies like Discovery, US Open.
But we wanted to extend our association with sport to beyond
complexes. Therefore we entered into a 10 year agreement with
NDTV for Marks for Sports," Jain said.
The
contest will see each city having its own ambassador from
the world’s of sport and Bollywood. Bipasha Basu is the
city ambassador for Mumbai, Virendra Sehwag for Delhi while
Ranbir Kapoor continues to be the national brand ambassador
for the Marks For Sports compaign.
Jain
said that the company sought the expertise of IAAF to find
out why India wasn’t faring better at the Olympics.
Research
showed that children in foreign countries like US start taking
sports seriously between the ages of 12-15 while in India,
children stop taking part in sports once they reach that age.
"Therefore
it was important to introduce sports in a school’s curriculum.
Our aim is to make the fittest city contest an annual feature,"
Jain contended.
NDTV
will be supporting the initiative through televised debates.
Besides, Nirmal will also organise sports events and an online
campaign to create awareness about the contest.
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