The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), in an unprecedented move, has rescheduled three 10th Board examination papers for pistol shooter Anish Bhanwala.
The 15-year-old Anish, who is competing at his maiden ISSF World Cup in Mexico, has already missed the Hindi paper which was on Tuesday.
Anish, the reigning National Champion in Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, will write two papers in the six-day gap between landing from Mexico and leaving for the Junior World Cup in Sydney. And he has been granted special dates to take the Hindi, Social Science and Mathematics papers, which will be held for him on April 16, 17 and 18, on his return from the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, starting on April 4.
The Social Science paper is on March 22 while Mathematics is on March 28.
The CBSE took the decision on the request of the Sports Authority of India, who made the request after Anish had approached them.
The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) had also written to the school authorities that Anish be allowed to take examinations later as he is important to India’s shooting campaign.
Besides the World Cup in Mexico, he is part of the teams for ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney, March 19 to 29 and the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, March 30 to April 15.
Anish had won a gold medal and also set a new junior world record of 579 in 25m Standard Pistol at last year’s ISSF Junior World Championship in Suhl, Germany. Last November, the Haryana boy also won silver in the Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol at the Commonwealth Shooting Championship in Brisbane.
