S Sabanayakan at the AIPS Asia Congress in Islamabad on October 6, 2017.

 S Sabanayakan, former president and secretary of the Sports Journalists’ Federation of India (SJFI), became the first Indian to be elected as one of the five vice-presidents of International Sports Press Association (AIPS) Asia, the continental body of sports journalists, today.

According to SJFI secretary Vinod Aiyappan Nair, the election took place during the 20th AIPS Asia Extraordinary Congress in Islamabad (Pakistan). There were nine candidates for the five posts of vice-presidents and Sabanayakan, the former Deputy Editor (Sports) of The Hindu, Kolkata, got elected securing 20 out of 25 votes.

The panel of president Sattam Al Sahli (Kuwait) came out victorious for a term of three years, till 2010. Amjad Malik (Pakistan) was re-elected as Secretary General. “Success came after eight years of struggle. The credit of keeping me focused goes to Vishy (former SJFI president G Viswanath). Subodh (Current SJFI president Subodh Malla Baruah) became my partner in this struggle when he got elected as the secretary,’’ said Sabanayakan after his victory.

NEW AIPS-ASIA TEAM:

President: Sattam Al Sahli (Kuwait). First Vice-president: Hee Don Jung (South Korea). Vice-presidents: S Sabanayakan (India), Ahmad Khawari (Malaysia), Mohammed Alshaikh (Saudi Arabia), Mohammed Hejji (Qatar), Meisam Zamanabadi (Iran). Secretary General: Amjad Malik (Pakistan). Treasurer: Niranjan Rajbanshi (Nepal). Executive Committee Members: Sayer Zaland (Afghanistan), Shinsuke Kobayashi (Japan), Ayad Haleem (Iraq), Nim Fong (Macau), Ahmed Al Kaabi (Oman), Ibrahim Dsouki (Lebanon), Ms Helen Chi (Taipei), Xiaodong Tu (China).