India’s failure to win its bid to stage the 2014 Asian Games in New Delhi has led to a war of words between Union sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and the president of the Indian Olympic Association, Suresh Kalmadi. Kalmadi has said India’s chances were hurt by Aiyar’s reported comment that what India needed for its sporting talent to flower was a concerted effort to boost the latent talent, not pomp and show.
“India’s future as a sporting nation depends much less on image-building exercises connected with mega sports events, than with reaching organised, formal sports and games facilities to 72 crore, out of 77 crore, Indian children, adolescents and youth, who are completely deprived,” Aiyar has been quoted as saying.
Questions: Who is right? Will Indian sport become better by staging big events or will it only benefit a contractors and crooks? Can Indian performances get better in a vacuum without facing global and regional competition, without creating the kind of facilities that hosting a game brings? Has Indian sport benefited with the 1982 Asiad and will it with the Commonwealth Games?
thank god for small mercies … we dont have it in us to excel in sports, I wonder what Mr Aiyar was referring when he said ‘latent talent’
at least the infrastructure would’ve improved.
so we can rent it out for jewellery shows, poultry shows, motor exhibitions ????
Nothing wrong in what Aiyar said. Kalmadi has got a fig leaf of an excuse on why his team could not win bid.
Kalmadi wants something to boost his image, if not the nation’s.
Kalmadi is at the helm of Indian Sports since donkeys years. Nothing has improved. Let the sports infrastructure be improved all over. Let the Sports Ministers have some gyaana and kaalagi for sports. Our Sports Minister, Alkod, had said that Anil Kumble ‘olley wicket aataa aadthaare’. This was after somebody said cricket, which the Minister heard as ‘wicket’.
In Gulbarga, the swimming pool is totally under the control of buffalo owners who bathe the buffaloes there. Coorg, the cradle of Indian Hockey, has no good facilities for good hockey practice. Most of the Sports bodies have no stadium of their own, and they have to depent on the local Muncipalities for this. Today, Kanteerava Stadium is more famous for hosting furniture or real estate or Uppis Happy Birthday shows. And now the painful BMP wants to build parking lots on playgrounds.
A million thanks to Mr.Aiyar, else the types of Kalmadis would only end up spluring tax payers money.
For once I have to agree with Mani.
For once Aiyer talked sense
HRBS
Mani is very intelligent–unfortunately could never get out of Rajeev’s trousers:)
Kalmadi, Aiyar , Manmohan bunch of nalayaks .
Still people refer to Kalmadi as a minister to represent the youth .That dude is like 55+ and he has been representing youth since two decades .
DG
Kalmadi is the Peter Pan of Indian sport!
The IOA should first cleanup and set their house in order.In every Sports Meet our athletes are caught for drug abuse and thrown out, but IOA does nothing. They don’t even feel ashamed.They are running IOA as if it’s their personal fiefdom.Even now our shooters do not get their equipment/ accossories on time.Worst of all, the officials stay as Maharajas when our squads go out, whereas the athletes sweat it out in below-par conditions.This money could be better spent in improving the lot of the athletes and infrastructure.
E.R.R . In every BODY ( Civic, Political or Sports or anything ) the sole purpose of office bearers is to make Money of the allotted funds .
There is no accountability and no body comes out about how they spent the money .There are other leeches hanging around these bodies for contractual jobs . It is so frustrating and just dont know when all this will end . ohh God Save India from these corrupt politicians.
It is a shame that one of our Member of Parliament is involved in Human trafficking and trust me in a few months he will be going around in political circles giving pose to media . Absolute Shameless creatures .
These Guys are worst than those worms which are existant in gutter .
DG: Please dont insult the worms. . :-)
Simple question: Will the CWC in West Indies help them regain their glory? In what way has the sporting infrastructure created for the 1982 Asiad helped?
DB,
Did you mean that MS Iyer was always only in the trousers of the Gandhi family? I always thought that he was inside of the garment worn inside the trousers ;-)
BTW, I hate this guy for
(1) his anti-karnataka remarks (Cauvery Issue – he never spoke like a Central Minister whenever he visited Karnataka),
(2) his pseudo-secularism (just because he is married to a Muslim, he thinks the whole country should emulate him in being a secularist),
(3) His sychopancy towards the Gandhi family – acts as their spokesman – however he is no different from any other Congressmen!
However, we have laud his efforts for getting the India-Pakistan-Iran Gas pipeline – he did a wonderful job there. At least he had some foresightedness in this area.
For once the Minister is right. Nothing has been achieved by hosting these games. There is no single athlete who can scale international heights after PT Usha.
This entry was posted on 20 April 2007. So today, on 24 Sep 2010, it is so out dated. But the utter failure of the Commonwealth Games preparations confirms that Sri. Manishankar Ayer is right.