I was having lunch with my colleagues in a small restaurant in Amoy street, Singapore. My colleagues are native germans and have been travelling extensively across Asia in recent times. Needless to say, they have been following India's growth story for some time now. On our table, the local edition of "Business Times" carried a small article on the CWG! I was hoping that the topic wouldn't be raised. But eventually it did.. A very naive question followed.. " India is a rising power man, what happened? "
While I tried giving a diplomatic revert, for one moment I shuddered at the thought of the hauntings that will follow once the games are over! The whole world has watched, read and studied this fiasco, as it has unravelled through the speeches of many senior government officials across Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and Newzealand.
There are no easy answers to this. 7 years back we got the mandate. 7 years is a long time to get basic infrastructure in place. Eminent parliamentarian and ex- IAS officer Mr. Mani Shankar Iyer went on record lambasting Mike Fennell yesterday. What was Mr.Iyer doing during his stint as sports minister! He hadn't even initiated the process of constructing the venues. In fact, he went on record mentioning that the monies for CWG need to be channelized for capability building of our sportsmen. Yah sure, please go ahead and do that. Just ask the foreign players who will be our guests to run and swim in stadiums, roofs of which may collapse anytime during their activity!
Then we have the comic display of Mr. Kalmadi and his group of croonies who have the collective audacity to say" Well, or venues are hygenic. It's just that westeners have different hygiene standards!" I mean, give us a break you jerks! Have you totally lost it? This generation of work-force which is pread globally and is working for international clients will need to go to their offices and be made a laughing stock...
The Indian tax-payer, including the bourgeois who has plodded hard and has paid his taxes on time. The Indian government and the organizing committee have taken him for a good ride!! We call them free-riders in campus jargon. The CM, PM and the entire top brass was sleeping over the last 7 years! The media which has suddenly woken up - I want to ask IBN and NDTVs of the world, "Where was your STING operation strategy?" I mean, they just woke up 3 months back??
Right now, am just so pissed. Especially when I thought I would have a good Friday lunch, stumped by the naive question posted by my friend. I kept thinking.. I really had lot of respect in the leadership of Manmohan Singh. Somewhere down the line it's got impacted..
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