By S. Sabanayakan
The Sports Journalists Federation of India (SJFI) elected a new set of office-bearers for a two-year term (2025-2027) during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Bhubaneswar on 29 June 2025.
The President of Tripura Sports Journalists’ Club, Saraju Chakraborty and the Vice-President of Telangana Sports Journalists’ Association, V. Ramesh, were elected as the new President and the Hony. Secretary, respectively.
The AGM also unanimously decided to confer the prestigious SJFI Medal 2024 on Indian chess icon and first Grandmaster, Viswanathan Anand, for his outstanding contribution to the development of chess in India for a period of four decades.
Anand will receive the SJFI Medal that has been previously bestowed upon greats of our country like Vijay Amritraj (Tennis), Prakash Padukone (Badminton), Sunil Gavaskar (Cricket), Milkha Singh (Athletics, posthumous) and P.T. Usha (Athletics).
The new team for 2025-2027:
President: Saraju Chakraborty (Tripura Sports Journalists’ Club).
Vice-Presidents: Naresh Shelke (Sports Journalists’ Association of Nagpur), Sabi Hussain (Delhi Sports Journalists’ Association), S. Dipak Ragav (Tamil Nadu Sports Journalists’ Association) and Suresh Swain (Odisha Sports Journalists’ Association).
Hony. Secretary: V. Ramesh (Telangana Sports Journalists’ Association).
Joint Secretary: Partha Chakraborty (Assam Sports Journalists’ Association).
Treasurer: Sanjay Gharpure (Sports Journalists’ Association of Mumbai).
Members: Atul J Loke (SJA of Mumbai), Imtiaz Ahmed (Assam SJA), Rajesh Kumar C K (Kerala SJA), Sabu Cheriyaan (SJA of Gujarat), Sandeep Misra (Odisha SJA), Suprabhat Debnath (Tripura SJC), Swaroop Swaminathan (Tamil Nadu SJA).
The newly elected President, Mr. Chakraborty, said his team’s first priority is to plan and execute the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the SJFI.
The SJFI was formed on February 27, 1976 at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta by Sports Journalists of Calcutta, Bombay and Delhi cities. Madras (now Chennai) joined the SJFI a year later. The SJFI (https://sjfi.in) spread it’s wings steadily to emerge a well respected sports journalists organisation in India. It was one of the founding members of ASPU in 1978. In 2010, ASPU was renamed as AIPS ASIA. The writer is one of the vice-presidents of AIPS ASIA.
