Aries air rifle and air pistol shooting academy, which was started as part of the Aries Music and Sound Foundation, is initiating the task of promoting and nurturing the young talents since its inception on May 27, 2010.

Talking to Nagaland Post when it visited the academy, Merang Jamir, proprietor, said that since the introduction and promotion of the sport, it was quite new to the people but now they have started liking to it.

Opened with the same standard of International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) and equipments, Merang said that he was impressed to see that the shooters at the academy were better than Shivang Sullere of Madhya Pradesh, a gold medalist, at the 21st All India G.V Mavlaukar Shooting Championship, which was held at Ahmedabad from October 11 to 21, 2011.

Merang said that at the championship, Shivang scored 384/400 points which was 96% but a promising shooter from his academy, Hito Swu, has scored 390/400 points on July 30 which is 97.5 % and more points than the national gold medalist.

He also said that Hito would be leaving for Dehradun on July 31 to be trained at the prestigious Jaspal Rana Institute of Education & Technology for one year and then shift to another state for more training.

Merang was of the view that when a Naga lad could perform much better than the national champion, why not encouraged the youths in the sport as they have potentials in them.

He also felt that the sport should be encouraged and introduced at district level by organizing talent search and holding coaching camps and train the shooters and send them outside the state for more exposure.

When asked why he was taking up such initiatives, Merang promptly replied that though it was the responsibility of the state government to identify sportsperson and train them, but he said his academy was taking the initiative of promoting the sport after seeing the talent and potential of the youths. 

He also said that though in the year 2010, many shooters were sent for competitions and were qualified for the national championship but added that due to reasons they could not participate in the championship.

Another promising shooter is Lichem Sangtam from Kiphire district who after his talent and potentiality being identified by Merang, is now undergoing training at the academy.

It may be mentioned that the Aries air rifle & air pistol shooting academy conducts “shooting for record” to see the percentage of the shooters once in a year so that they could keep track his/her performance.