July 27, 2010

19th Commonwealth Games - Where is India headed?

The Wall Street Journal carried an article on the upcoming 19th Commonwealth Games and how under prepared India was just 70 days prior to the start of the event.

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On reading the article, especially the line "Recent efforts by world peers—China's 2008 Beijing Olympics, South Africa's just-concluded FIFA World Cup—will be hard acts to follow." all it showed was that how much ever the corruption, bureaucracy and likes affected these nation internally, when they are to face the world and prove themselves, both these countries did it. All said and done, the question remains, will India be able to do it?

Moreover, the work that has been completed does not meet standard and quality. A downpour had the false ceiling of the table tennis arena crashing! Work which will for sure take more then 2 months, are going to be finished ( hopefully) within 2 months. This will result in nothing but below par stadiums, swimming pools and such which shall deteriorate faster than they were completed.

With work moving at the present pace, I wonder how many sponsors do they plan on signing up. Except for Coca Cola, Hero Honda and Reebok, there isn't a single big name yet. Will a big brand sign up at the 13th hour? How will they advertise?

Above all, where is the metro headed to? It was to be completed by the Commonwealth Games, which is what I distinctly remember them saying, when they started work in 2005, and that was 5 years back!

2 comments:

  1. I am ashamed to say but really I don't think CWG will be conducted as smoothly as planned...there will be a mishap or something...corruption and loss of sense of national pride has eaten away India's capability of being perfect hosts.

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  2. The Metro is the only project which is on track and will be finished on time.

    When you rope in DDA, CPWD, MCD, PWD (the most corrupt agencies)..what do you expect???

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