CWG- Pride or Embarrasement?

Hi Guys,

It has been a long time since I wrote my last post. Recently one thing has been in the news so frequently, the CWG scandal. What should have made us pride has been leading us down, because of our officials. Well, in this post let me point out my views on this issue.

Well, how to begin with and where to begin with? It seems that the issue has started well before India got its vote. Today morning I read that during the venue selection meeting, there was stiff competition between Delhi and Montreal (Canada) and Delhi beat Montreal 46-22. It is said that in the backdrop India gave money to all the member nations in the name of some development scheme to get the vote in our favour.

So, somehow India got the chance and when the news came I was so happy that our country is going to host the second biggest sporting event in the world, the first being the Olympics. Last CWG was in Melbourne (2006). At the closing ceremony India got the flag and many of our stars performed in the stage marking the arrival of games in India.

The preparations started well before and everything was supposed to be over before many months. But as usual like every other Indian event our organizers were sluggish and everything was beyond schedule. Stadiums were not finished before deadline and CWG committee had to warn our officials to finish off things quickly. Things were appearing to be fine. Stadiums were finished and their inaugurations took place. Each of the stadium looked world class. I thought our officials had finally reacted.

Then before a month, media began to dig deep and find all the scandals possibly related with CWG. Each day you can find news portraying one official or minister being accused of mishandling money and power. There were many resignations, accuses and things and they reduced slowly and people became annoyed and directly asked the media to support the games instead of damaging them.

So, everything was going well. With a fortnight left to the games, it was not from within the country, but from outside the country. Athletes from other countries were aggravated of the poor quality of games village. It was completely true and was covered by one of the most reputed news channel. They were dog’s marks on the bed, water leakage in the restroom, etc. Our officials replied that the recent rains in Delhi had delayed the work and things will be finished soon.

Roof that collapsed a few days ago

In good time our government got in. They appointed more workers, made lot of efforts and what a magic! In just 2 days time, other countrymen say the conditions are much better and are fit for living. They could have done it much earlier.

Today morning in The Hindu I read Peter Roebuck’s column on how India would pull all things just at the end. He says he expect a decent CWG. I also expect the same. I hope our officials would pull up things and make a superb appearance at the end.

Now the recent news is that Mr. Suresh Kalmadi has accepted responsibility for all the affairs. I don’t think this is fair as he is not the only person behind all these things. There are lot of reasons and I think our government has asked him to agree in order to pacify the media and other countrymen.

Rather than focussing on these issues, we can focus on the games and support Indian athletes at the games.

Happy Reading!!!