Aiyar's sanity is a voice of insanity for the likes of Kalmadi.How else will they have aisharya rai and Amir Khan run the olympic torch over the likes of P T Usha and Padukones of the country.How else will Priyanka Chopras will be on display waiving to the crowd as in Montreal instead of show casing Krishnan and Michael Faraieras .International Prestige and international fame is not achieved by how well mega events are organised but how many medals a country returns.And on that score we have one silver olympic medal after thirty years of Asiad and all the infrastructure that went with it.
Aiyar wants to prove that late Mrs. Indira gandhi wasted indian tax payer money by hosting 1980 asiad and same was done by Nehruji by hosting first Asiad.
Fully agree Mr.Mani Shanker Aiyer's view. It would not have benefited the Country to host the Asian Games at this stage, when the politicians rule the roost in almost all sports federations. And none of them are functioning properly. Only all these politicians at the helm of associations would have made money & Indian coffers would have been emptied for that purpose. Unless sports is left to sportsmen, both participation & management, no major sports event should be held in India (including Cricket) & Sports ministry & Cabinet should not give any nod or budgetary support for organising such events.
Mr.Mani Shanker Aiyer has to be careful, because of his Iran Gas pipe line, which powers that be did not like, he was shunted out of that ministry & because of this straight talk he may even be shunted out of Sports ministry!!
We (the Indian sports administrators) seem to be interested only in organising events in India. But not about our sports standards. We have been performing so miserably in all events, and it is a shame that instead of improving in technical areas, we are wanting to manage the shows !
Same is true for Cricket world cup 2011 - we want to conduct these every 8 years in India / sub continent. This is also true about scientific conferences (may be for many others). Just want to be managers, without doing the real hard work.
mani shankar aiyar is absolutely right in what he says, look at the position of indian sport today except for few brilliant individuals ,indian sports is looking down the hill.if the money is rightly spent then we can produce more sporting champions ,its a shame for a country like ours to finisha with just 1 silver medal at the last olmpics
RE:Then why bid?
by RAJ KUMAR on Apr 23, 2007 12:00 PM
The other day I was watching the news channel having interview of Mr. kalmadi and Mr. Aiyyar. Mr. kalmadi looked so dejected and lost as if over night he has gone bankruppted.I fully endorse views of MAni Shankar Aiyyar that till we have strong infrastructure at grass root level there is no need of wasting money in organising such events as Asiad/CW Games.I 14 when Aisad 82 took place. I almost watched all the event on TV as it was a one month holiday for all students. Unfortunately i felt very sad and embarrased when i saw japan/China/S Korea winning so convincingly in every sports event and barring individual gold in events likegolf//Boxing/women hockey/Wrestling and few succeses in Atheletics we were left behind in every field. Now almost 25 Years has passed since 82 Asiad. We have not crossed the highest medals talley and also our success in Big events have come down to Tennis/Shooting/Kabbadi etc. What mr. Kalmadi wants to achieve by wasting such an extravagant amount by staging such a big event.Spend that money for providing sports facilities at govt school level. Set up sports facility whci charge minimum of money from the poor kids and provide some good coaching and better equipments. Frankly speaking first thrash out all these politicians from Sports bodies and replace them with Good retired Buerocrats/Judges/Defence officers who can devote more keenly and without any personnel motives.
"Cities who host the Olympic Games (or Asian Games) must commit to significant investments in sports venues and other infrastructure. It is commonly assumed that the scale of such and event and the scale of the preparation for it will create large and lasting economic benefits to the host city. Economic impact studies confirm these expectations by forecasting economic benefits in the billions of dollars. Unfortunately these studies are filled with misapplications of economic theory that virtually guarantee their projections will be large. Ex-post studies have consistently found no evidence of positive economic impacts from mega-sporting events even remotely approaching the estimates in economic impact studies."
I am neither a fan of Mani nor a fan of Congress. But in the instant case (like in many other cases), Aiyer seems to make lot of sense. What is the use of concentrating all the resources to one event making it advantageous to one or two cities, probably already well developed ones? Instaed of that spending this money for basic infrastructure makes long term sense. Having said that, now questions for Mr Mani: 1. What makes you think that 5000 crore will be utilized properly? I will bet that more than 80% will go in to the deep pockets of corrupt contractors who will throws some breadcrumbs to all and sundry political wag-tails
2. If you are feeling relieved by failure of bid, why did we even try to bid? I am sure quite a few crores have been spent in preparing the proposals, making trips for presenting the proposals. Could you not have used that money to provide at least the midday meal to the starving but budding bubbly girls of Bihar dreaming to be swimming champions? You are in the place where your voice gets heard - did you make an attempt to stop that? Now it only seems like the 'sour grapes' from the fables
RE:Sour grapes or truth ?
by Kundan Lucky on Apr 23, 2007 12:56 AM
Very well said. Aiyer is talking sense and he might even be honest about the purpose but it seems he too wants all this to happen just by itself.
RE:Sour grapes or truth ?
by shuresh babbu on Apr 23, 2007 09:01 AM
If you are feeling relieved by failure of bid, why did we even try to bid? this is because aiyar was petroleum minister and the bid was done before he took the sports ministry
