Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
$message = 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
$stackFrame = (int) 1
$trace = [
	(int) 0 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ServerRequest.php',
		'line' => (int) 2421,
		'function' => 'deprecationWarning',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead.'
		]
	],
	(int) 1 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
		'line' => (int) 73,
		'function' => 'offsetGet',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'catslug'
		]
	],
	(int) 2 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Controller/Controller.php',
		'line' => (int) 610,
		'function' => 'printArticle',
		'class' => 'App\Controller\ArtileDetailController',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 3 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 120,
		'function' => 'invokeAction',
		'class' => 'Cake\Controller\Controller',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 4 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 94,
		'function' => '_invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 5 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/BaseApplication.php',
		'line' => (int) 235,
		'function' => 'dispatch',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\BaseApplication',
		'object' => object(App\Application) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 162,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 88,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 96,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 51,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Server.php',
		'line' => (int) 98,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\MiddlewareQueue) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/webroot/index.php',
		'line' => (int) 39,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Server',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Server) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	]
]
$frame = [
	'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
	'line' => (int) 73,
	'function' => 'offsetGet',
	'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
	'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {
		trustProxy => false
		[protected] params => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] data => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] query => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] cookies => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _environment => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] url => 'latest-news-updates/the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/latest-news-updates/the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798/print'
		[protected] trustedProxies => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] _input => null
		[protected] _detectors => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _detectorCache => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] stream => object(Zend\Diactoros\PhpInputStream) {}
		[protected] uri => object(Zend\Diactoros\Uri) {}
		[protected] session => object(Cake\Http\Session) {}
		[protected] attributes => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] emulatedAttributes => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] uploadedFiles => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] protocol => null
		[protected] requestTarget => null
		[private] deprecatedProperties => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	},
	'type' => '->',
	'args' => [
		(int) 0 => 'catslug'
	]
]
deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 73
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
$message = 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
$stackFrame = (int) 1
$trace = [
	(int) 0 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ServerRequest.php',
		'line' => (int) 2421,
		'function' => 'deprecationWarning',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead.'
		]
	],
	(int) 1 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
		'line' => (int) 74,
		'function' => 'offsetGet',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'artileslug'
		]
	],
	(int) 2 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Controller/Controller.php',
		'line' => (int) 610,
		'function' => 'printArticle',
		'class' => 'App\Controller\ArtileDetailController',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 3 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 120,
		'function' => 'invokeAction',
		'class' => 'Cake\Controller\Controller',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 4 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 94,
		'function' => '_invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 5 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/BaseApplication.php',
		'line' => (int) 235,
		'function' => 'dispatch',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\BaseApplication',
		'object' => object(App\Application) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 162,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 88,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 96,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 51,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Server.php',
		'line' => (int) 98,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\MiddlewareQueue) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/webroot/index.php',
		'line' => (int) 39,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Server',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Server) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	]
]
$frame = [
	'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
	'line' => (int) 74,
	'function' => 'offsetGet',
	'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
	'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {
		trustProxy => false
		[protected] params => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] data => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] query => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] cookies => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _environment => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] url => 'latest-news-updates/the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/latest-news-updates/the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798/print'
		[protected] trustedProxies => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] _input => null
		[protected] _detectors => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _detectorCache => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] stream => object(Zend\Diactoros\PhpInputStream) {}
		[protected] uri => object(Zend\Diactoros\Uri) {}
		[protected] session => object(Cake\Http\Session) {}
		[protected] attributes => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] emulatedAttributes => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] uploadedFiles => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] protocol => null
		[protected] requestTarget => null
		[private] deprecatedProperties => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	},
	'type' => '->',
	'args' => [
		(int) 0 => 'artileslug'
	]
]
deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 74
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Code Context
            if (Configure::read('debug')) {

                trigger_error($message, E_USER_WARNING);

            } else {
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr67fab41c4801c-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr67fab41c4801c-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr67fab41c4801c-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 2712,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;The Hindustan Times, 5 August, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-field-s-wide-open/H1-Article1-582844.aspx&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 2798,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 2712,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;Corruption&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 2712,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;The Hindustan Times, 5 August, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-field-s-wide-open/H1-Article1-582844.aspx&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 2798,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
		(int) 0 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 2712
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Corruption&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;English&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>latest-news-updates/the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p align="justify"><font ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because of&nbsp; the college&quot;. Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: &quot;Why blame the college!&quot;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar's writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an 'anti-national' remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers' money. That with less than 60 days to go for India's biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world's premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as 'national pride' versus 'national shame'. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to 'nationalism' has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their 'superior' ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a 'coming of age' party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a 'rainbow nation'. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its 'nationhood'? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the 'Games as nationalism' tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 'baksheesh' that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in 'transparent' procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi's playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games' panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members' club. In the Games, it's the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that's why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi's original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$maxBufferLength = (int) 8192
$file = '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php'
$line = (int) 853
$message = 'Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853'
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Code Context
            $response->getStatusCode(),

            ($reasonPhrase ? ' ' . $reasonPhrase : '')

        ));
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr67fab41c4801c-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr67fab41c4801c-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr67fab41c4801c-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 2712,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;The Hindustan Times, 5 August, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-field-s-wide-open/H1-Article1-582844.aspx&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 2798,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 2712,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;Corruption&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 2712,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;The Hindustan Times, 5 August, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-field-s-wide-open/H1-Article1-582844.aspx&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 2798,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
		(int) 0 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 2712
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Corruption&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;English&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>latest-news-updates/the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p align="justify"><font ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because of&nbsp; the college&quot;. Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: &quot;Why blame the college!&quot;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar's writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an 'anti-national' remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers' money. That with less than 60 days to go for India's biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world's premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as 'national pride' versus 'national shame'. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to 'nationalism' has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their 'superior' ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a 'coming of age' party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a 'rainbow nation'. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its 'nationhood'? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the 'Games as nationalism' tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 'baksheesh' that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in 'transparent' procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi's playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games' panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members' club. In the Games, it's the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that's why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi's original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$reasonPhrase = 'OK'
header - [internal], line ??
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emitStatusLine() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 54
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Code Context
                    $value

                ), $first);

                $first = false;
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr67fab41c4801c-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67fab41c4801c-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr67fab41c4801c-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr67fab41c4801c-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 2712,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;The Hindustan Times, 5 August, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-field-s-wide-open/H1-Article1-582844.aspx&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 2798,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 2712,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;Corruption&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 2712,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;The Hindustan Times, 5 August, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-field-s-wide-open/H1-Article1-582844.aspx&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 2798,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
		(int) 0 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 2712
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field&#039;s wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Corruption&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie&#039;s best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &amp;quot;I am what I am because of&amp;nbsp; the college&amp;quot;. Prompt came Aiyar&#039;s rejoinder: &amp;quot;Why blame the college!&amp;quot;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar&#039;s writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an &#039;anti-national&#039; remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers&#039; money. That with less than 60 days to go for India&#039;s biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world&#039;s premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as &#039;national pride&#039; versus &#039;national shame&#039;. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to &#039;nationalism&#039; has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their &#039;superior&#039; ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a &#039;coming of age&#039; party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a &#039;rainbow nation&#039;. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its &#039;nationhood&#039;? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the &#039;Games as nationalism&#039; tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 &#039;baksheesh&#039; that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in &#039;transparent&#039; procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi&#039;s playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games&#039; panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members&#039; club. In the Games, it&#039;s the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that&#039;s why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi&#039;s original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;English&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>latest-news-updates/the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p align="justify"><font ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because of&nbsp; the college&quot;. Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: &quot;Why blame the college!&quot;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar's writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an 'anti-national' remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers' money. That with less than 60 days to go for India's biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world's premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as 'national pride' versus 'national shame'. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to 'nationalism' has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their 'superior' ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a 'coming of age' party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a 'rainbow nation'. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its 'nationhood'? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the 'Games as nationalism' tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 'baksheesh' that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in 'transparent' procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi's playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games' panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members' club. In the Games, it's the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that's why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi's original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$cookies = []
$values = [
	(int) 0 => 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
]
$name = 'Content-Type'
$first = true
$value = 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
header - [internal], line ??
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emitHeaders() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 55
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

<head>

    <link rel="canonical" href="<?php echo Configure::read('SITE_URL'); ?><?php echo $urlPrefix;?><?php echo $article_current->category->slug; ?>/<?php echo $article_current->seo_url; ?>.html"/>

    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>

$viewFile = '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp'
$dataForView = [
	'article_current' => object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		'id' => (int) 2712,
		'title' => 'The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai',
		'subheading' => '',
		'description' => '<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<br />
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because of&nbsp; the college&quot;. Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: &quot;Why blame the college!&quot;</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar's writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an 'anti-national' remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers' money. That with less than 60 days to go for India's biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world's premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as 'national pride' versus 'national shame'. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to 'nationalism' has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their 'superior' ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a 'coming of age' party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a 'rainbow nation'. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its 'nationhood'? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the 'Games as nationalism' tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 'baksheesh' that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in 'transparent' procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi's playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games' panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members' club. In the Games, it's the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that's why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi's original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>',
		'credit_writer' => 'The Hindustan Times, 5 August, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-field-s-wide-open/H1-Article1-582844.aspx',
		'article_img' => '',
		'article_img_thumb' => '',
		'status' => (int) 1,
		'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
		'lang' => 'EN',
		'category_id' => (int) 16,
		'tag_keyword' => '',
		'seo_url' => 'the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798',
		'meta_title' => null,
		'meta_keywords' => null,
		'meta_description' => null,
		'noindex' => (int) 0,
		'publish_date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		'most_visit_section_id' => null,
		'article_big_img' => null,
		'liveid' => (int) 2798,
		'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'edate' => '',
		'tags' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		'category' => object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		'[new]' => false,
		'[accessible]' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		'[dirty]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[original]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[virtual]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[hasErrors]' => false,
		'[errors]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[invalid]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[repository]' => 'Articles'
	
	},
	'articleid' => (int) 2712,
	'metaTitle' => 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai',
	'metaKeywords' => 'Corruption',
	'metaDesc' => '




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because...',
	'disp' => '<p align="justify"><font ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because of&nbsp; the college&quot;. Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: &quot;Why blame the college!&quot;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar's writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an 'anti-national' remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers' money. That with less than 60 days to go for India's biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world's premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as 'national pride' versus 'national shame'. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to 'nationalism' has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their 'superior' ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a 'coming of age' party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a 'rainbow nation'. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its 'nationhood'? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the 'Games as nationalism' tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 'baksheesh' that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in 'transparent' procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi's playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games' panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members' club. In the Games, it's the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that's why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi's original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>',
	'lang' => 'English',
	'SITE_URL' => 'https://im4change.in/',
	'site_title' => 'im4change',
	'adminprix' => 'admin'
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	'id' => (int) 2712,
	'title' => 'The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai',
	'subheading' => '',
	'description' => '<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<br />
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because of&nbsp; the college&quot;. Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: &quot;Why blame the college!&quot;</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar's writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an 'anti-national' remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers' money. That with less than 60 days to go for India's biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world's premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as 'national pride' versus 'national shame'. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to 'nationalism' has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their 'superior' ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a 'coming of age' party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a 'rainbow nation'. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its 'nationhood'? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the 'Games as nationalism' tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 'baksheesh' that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in 'transparent' procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi's playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games' panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members' club. In the Games, it's the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that's why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi's original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>',
	'credit_writer' => 'The Hindustan Times, 5 August, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-field-s-wide-open/H1-Article1-582844.aspx',
	'article_img' => '',
	'article_img_thumb' => '',
	'status' => (int) 1,
	'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
	'lang' => 'EN',
	'category_id' => (int) 16,
	'tag_keyword' => '',
	'seo_url' => 'the-fields-wide-open-by-rajdeep-sardesai-2798',
	'meta_title' => null,
	'meta_keywords' => null,
	'meta_description' => null,
	'noindex' => (int) 0,
	'publish_date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	'most_visit_section_id' => null,
	'article_big_img' => null,
	'liveid' => (int) 2798,
	'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'edate' => '',
	'tags' => [
		(int) 0 => object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	'category' => object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	'[new]' => false,
	'[accessible]' => [
		'*' => true,
		'id' => false
	],
	'[dirty]' => [],
	'[original]' => [],
	'[virtual]' => [],
	'[hasErrors]' => false,
	'[errors]' => [],
	'[invalid]' => [],
	'[repository]' => 'Articles'

}
$articleid = (int) 2712
$metaTitle = 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai'
$metaKeywords = 'Corruption'
$metaDesc = '




Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because...'
$disp = '<p align="justify"><font ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, &quot;I am what I am because of&nbsp; the college&quot;. Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: &quot;Why blame the college!&quot;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar's writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an 'anti-national' remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers' money. That with less than 60 days to go for India's biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world's premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as 'national pride' versus 'national shame'. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to 'nationalism' has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their 'superior' ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a 'coming of age' party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a 'rainbow nation'. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its 'nationhood'? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the 'Games as nationalism' tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 'baksheesh' that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in 'transparent' procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi's playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games' panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members' club. In the Games, it's the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that's why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared!</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi's original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>'
$lang = 'English'
$SITE_URL = 'https://im4change.in/'
$site_title = 'im4change'
$adminprix = 'admin'

include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51

The field's wide open by Rajdeep Sardesai

Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, "I am what I am because of  the college". Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: "Why blame the college!" Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating society is deemed as offensive in the real world. Lost in the process is the bank of knowledge that often informs Aiyar's writings and speeches. Which is why when he chose last week to express the hope that the Commonwealth Games would collapse with the rains, there was instant anger at what was deemed as an 'anti-national' remark, especially coming from an MP who is still a member of the ruling party and was sports minister not too long ago. Ironically, a few days later, the tables have rather dramatically turned. Aiyar is now a chuckling soothsayer, Suresh Kalmadi is seen as a bumbling villain. As a slew of corruption allegations hit the Games, there is almost a self-congratulatory note among the nay-sayers for whom the event is a waste of tax-payers' money. That with less than 60 days to go for India's biggest sports competition, there is still a fierce debate over the necessity for it to be held in the first place only confirms our status as the world's premier squabbling democracy. Could anyone imagine a similar debate in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics? Unfortunately, the debate itself has been wrongly posited as 'national pride' versus 'national shame'. Tying up the successful organisation of a sports event to 'nationalism' has a distinct Soviet-style ring to it. Cold War Soviet Union could see staging the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as symbolic of their 'superior' ideological system. Communist China perhaps viewed the Olympics as a 'coming of age' party. Even South Africa, a republic which is still less than two decades old, could view the soccer World Cup as an opportunity to parade its credentials as a 'rainbow nation'. But why does a nation with a million-year history need a sports spectacle invented by our colonial masters to reaffirm its 'nationhood'? In any case, true sporting nationalism lies in winning medals, not in staging high-profile tamashas. The debate, therefore, needs to be shorn of the 'Games as nationalism' tag. A high-pitched battle between those who see every stadium leak as a disgrace and those who believe that a beautified national capital will be a source of pride will serve little purpose. Instead, we need to focus on what is the root of the controversy: a prevailing culture which is rooted in sloth, corruption and opacity. The Commonwealth Games are not the problem; they are only a symptom of the wider crisis that confronts new India. In the euphoria over 8 per cent growth, we sometimes forget that we are still ranked a lowly 84th in the Transparency International corruption index. When a society is steeped in corruption, it would be unrealistic to expect that a R40,000-crore event will be above it all, especially when its organisational set-up is a hydra-headed monster led by babus and multiple authorities. We may appear surprised that the corruption extends to even the pricing of tissue paper and umbrellas, but whoever suggests that corruption only involves million-dollar contracts forgets the R500 'baksheesh' that is still handed out to the policeman who stops you for breaking a traffic signal. Moreover, the belief that the end of the licence-permit raj would usher in 'transparent' procedures has long since been proven bogus. Instead, it has only bred a form of crony capitalism that revolves around handing out largesse to friends and relatives. Sports has been a particular sufferer in this regard. Every sports federation is run like a mini-empire by warlords and their henchmen, with virtually no checks and balances. Kalmadi has been heading the athletics federation for more than 20 years, the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years. In the process, Olympic sport has become Kalmadi's playground, an event like the Games providing the perfect stage for him to distribute patronage to the chosen few. But why single out Kalmadi? What is the accountability of the government of India whose bureaucrats are on various Games' panels? The PM appointed a core group of ministers to supervise the Games, should they not take some responsibility? The Central Vigilance Commission report is a damning indictment of every civic authority in the urban development ministry and Delhi government, should they not be also brought under the scanner? In a sense, the parallels between the Games and that other sporting circus, the Indian Premier League (IPL), are uncanny. In the IPL, the sleaze showed up the frailties of corporate India which tried to run the event like a private members' club. In the Games, it's the soft underbelly of the State which is being exposed. In the IPL, a single individual, Lalit Modi, has been held responsible for the corruption even as the other board and governing council members appear to have got away. In the Games too, the focus seems to be on Kalmadi when it should be on every government department that has benefited from the bonanza. Maybe, that's why its called the Commonwealth Games: the wealth has been commonly shared! Post-script: question for Mani Shankar Aiyar: how does he reconcile his hatred for mega sports events with the fact that Rajiv Gandhi's original showpiece project was the Asiad 1982? A supplementary question: would Aiyar have shown similar antipathy towards the Commonwealth Games if Rahul Gandhi had been organising committee chairperson?