While India’s vaccine shortage problem continues unabated, one can’t help but feel sorry for the hundreds of professional sportspersons across the country whose bread and butter has been hit by the Centre’s failure.

Though there is no major sporting event happening in India at the moment given the current Covid-19 explosion, there are quite a few competitions in progress abroad, particularly in Europe and America, across disciplines like tennis, boxing, football, hockey. And there are many Indian sportspersons, who are eligible to participate at the pro level, but cannot do so since the prerequisite for participation is a vaccination certificate, and a major part of India’s population that lies in the 18-44 age bracket is yet to be vaccinated.