Playing a vital role in the development of the overall personality of an individual, sports are an import facet of human life. Played in numerous forms, varying from those deploying physical activities to the ones involving strategizing instincts, these games have always been a part of the schedule of human life. These activities inculcate a sense of discipline, self-confidence, time management, team building, and cooperation of sportsmanship.

Doping in Sports

While sports encourage the spirit of competitiveness amongst the players, the increasing competition in the modern world has led to the elevation in the stress levels. Pressure is created on the player taking part in the activities causing them to improve their performance at any cost. With a view to enhance their athletic performance, the sports persons take recourse to doping which involves consumption of banned drugs. This has turned out to be great menace for the sports authorities to tackle attributable to its unethical and illegal nature being unfair to the honest players and having adverse impact on the health of the consumers of the prohibited drugs. Doping is mainly done with the intent to cheat and to have an edge over the others.

Doping Control Mechanism

The World Anti-Doping Agency (hereinafter referred to as "WADA"), established in 1999, is an international independent agency supported by sport movement and governments of the world having key activities like scientific research, education, development of anti-doping capacities, and monitoring of anti-doping policies in all sports and of all countries.

At the domestic level, National Anti-Doping Agency (hereinafter referred to as "NADA") is the national organisation set up for fostering, coordinating, and monitoring the doping control program in sports in all its forms in India. It is also engaged in promoting anti-doping research and planning, implementing, regulating anti-doping information and educational programs thereby creating awareness about doping and its ill effects.

NADA has introduced the National Anti-Doping Rules, 2015 (hereinafter referred to as "NADA Rules") which deals with adopting and implementing anti-doping rules and policies conforming with the guidelines issued by the WADA. The NADA Rules laying down the condition for athletes and athlete's support personnel for participation in sports event, as also the manner of collection of samples for conduct of result management of dope test results and conduct of disciplinary and appeal panel proceedings at national level.

Working with the objective of dope free sports in India and strengthen the National Anti-Doping Program, NADA Rules protect the rights of the Athletes while maintaining the integrity of sport and provide awareness about consequences of doping. Justifying the true essence of sports by the virtue of ethics, fair play, honesty, India has formulated its policies to control the doping in sports occurring within the territorial limits of the nation. However, it is still confronted with the challenges posed by the pleas due to lack of awareness. The NADA Rules are expected to address the concerns of the athletes and their coaches by appropriately educating them about their rights and responsibilities

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