Prima in Indus! Cathedral School Stamp to be released by the President today.

The 19th Common Wealth Games - the way forward for India?

Last evening I watched Prince Edward, patron of the Commonwealth Games Federation, formally declare the 19th CWG closed. Before that, The Commonwealth Games Federation President Michael Fennell paid handsome tributes to Delhi for "delivering an exceptional Games".

I had been tracking the slow and lacklustre progress of the Delhi CWG infrastructure development over the past 7-8 years since the Chief Executive Officer of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Mr David (Sandy) Hollway first visited Mumbai and discussed the subject with Indian Industry. All said and done Indian athletes and sports persons came out with flying colors. The way forward will require more sports infrastructure to be set up all over India. Just Delhi is not enough.

At a meeting with the London Business School in Mumbai last month, Mr. Nirmalya Kumar, Professor Of Marketing, disagreed with me that Indian Sports and Athletics had globalised. He said that India had not made its mark on the world map in this sphere so far. I hope that my stand is now vindicated.

• India finished a historic second in the CWG Gold Medal haul with 38 against UK's 37 only.
• India finished 3rd in the overall medals tally with 101, being a record medal haul of 38 gold, 27 silver and 36 bronze medals.
• The main haul of these 101 medals came from the shooting range, wrestling mat, boxing ring, archery range and, to everyone’s surprise, the track and field events, to provide the country with a reasonably strong sports foundation on which to build a more powerful edifice on.
• Rifle-shooting ace Gagan Narang, from Hyderabad won Gold
• Teenage woman archer Deepika Kumari, daughter of an auto-rickshaw driver won Gold
• Haryana provided India’s first track and field event gold medal in 52 years when Krishna Poonia led a clean sweep of the women’s discus throw, Harwant Kaur and Seema Antil winning the silver and bronze.
• The women’s 4x400m relay squad also struck an unexpected gold. The team comprised of Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, Ashwini Akkunji and Mandeep Kaur.
• Saina Nehwal, brought down two gold medals which were vital to help India push England to the third place
• The men’s hockey team made history by making it to the final for the first time and won silver.
• The wrestling contingent were not far behind winning 19 medals in the 21 designated event. Among the 19 medals, there were 10 gold, five silver and four bronze medals.
• Sushil Kumar won gold
• The women wrestlers participating in the Games for the first time stole the show with a memorable performance. In the six events for women, India won three gold, two silver and a bronze medal to show their supremacy in the freestyle category. The trio of Alka Tomar, Geeta and Anita won their final bouts with ease, while Babita Kumari and Nirmala Devi won silver.
• Krishna Poonia created history by breaking India’s 52-year-old Commonwealth Games gold medal jinx by winning the yellow metal in women’s discus throw with the event also setting a record of first with the country sweeping all the medals. Harwant Kaur and Seema Antil bagged silver and bronze respectively. Poonia also became the first Indian woman to bag a Commonwealth Games gold after ‘Flying Sikh’ Milkha Singh won the men’s 440 yards race in 1958 edition in Cardiff, Wales.
• Kavita Raut, a 25-year-old girl from a poor family at a non-descript village at Nashik district in Maharashtra who opened the medal floodgates for India by winning a bronze in women’s 10,000m race and she later said she took to athletics as she can run barefooted.
• Boxers won three titles - through Suranjoy Singh (52kg), Manoj Kumar (64kg) and Paramjeet Samota (+91kg). The four bronze medals were won by Amandeep Singh (49kg), Jai Bhagwan (60kg), Dilbag Singh (69kg) and Vijender Singh (75kg).

We have beaten Australia at Cricket. Our golfers are doing well too. When officials from the Ministry of Youth Affairs &  Sports of India visited Mumbai on July 30th, 2010, to promote Delhi's newly developed sports infrastructure and stadiums for post CWG usage opportunities, I couldn't help but recollect Madhu Sapre's response at the 41st Miss Universe pageant, which was held at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, Bangkok, Thailand on May 8, 1992.







The response was unconventional and probably did cost her the crown. But then has India learn't its lesson? Will our leaders deliver or then will Madhu's remain a dream? In her own words on leadership appreciation.....







......Is the present Mrs. Gandhi listening?

What next.....?

Lets start looking for good architects and create a structural wonder. Good time to build a multi-religious, multi-era, multi-cultural monument as a house of peace and prayer for all. Let the past RIP.

Help us try and solve our car parking problems

Increase in purchasing power has resulted in an exponential growth in demand for, and the use of LCVs & Two-wheelers. This growth has caused an equal demand for parking spaces. Close to eight lakh cars are sold in India every year, growing at an average of 10% p.a. Each year five million two-wheelers are being added at an astounding 15%. Though the growth reflects the growing wealth of Indians, both material and monetary, cities are rapidly losing comfortable space in which to move about. What’s more, the problem has now shifted into tier II and tier III towns where infrastructure development is still weak.

Advanced Strategies (www.astrategies.com/astrategies.pdf) and the Abhyas program (www.abhyas.org) have engaged summer interns Gagan Kumar Singh and Santosh Manshiramani of the Sadhana Centre for Management Leadership & Development, Pune (www.scmld.org - beyond conventional management programs) to work on a research paper.

Responding to these questions will be your contribution to our ongoing efforts to create a collaborative dialogue, and combine efforts to find solutions that meet the increasing need of parking, as well as to formulate policies and regulations for the creation and use of parking space. These questions are targeted at residents of Mumbai and Pune, as these cities are being covered for the study at present. Thank you for your kind co-operation.


Click on link http://tinyurl.com/2vy77co

Goodbye `Arnold' Gary Coleman!

If more people were for people ....

How did Thailand come to this?

Wednesday, 19 May 2010
By Vaudine England  BBC News, Bangkok  

 

Three months ago, Bangkok appeared to be a successful South East Asian capital city - now government troops and anti-government protesters are fighting in the streets. The BBC's Vaudine England considers how it came to this.

Huge and thriving, Bangkok has long been seen - and seen itself - as a great city. But now there is blood on the streets.

It is hard to imagine how Thailand got to this - and how it will manage to recover.

One explanation is simply that a crazed rabble of poor people came to the city from the under-developed north, flaunting their love for a former prime minister - Thaksin Shinawatra - and being paid to do so.

Another vision talks of class war and a peoples' uprising, as the masses rise up on the barricades.

The reality lies somewhere in between and can only be understood by a brisk walk through Thailand's recent political history.

It is easy to speak of the 18 new constitutions in the past half-century, and the many coups. It is hard for people living in more settled countries to imagine that level of uncertainty about the basic rules of the political game.

Whatever version of the recent past is chosen, neither violence nor a death-defying commitment to democracy is unusual in Thai politics

Absolute monarchy only gave way to constitutional rule in 1932 and the play of power between the old feudal system, the military and various democratic forces has been fought out ever since, often with fatal consequences.

Certain big dates stand out: 1973, 1976, 1992, 2006 and now 2010.

Thailand's overwhelming image as a Land of Smiles - as a fantasy land of sun, sea, sex and surgery - has been carefully crafted.

It has seduced many, outsiders and Thais, into believing a façade of stability where there was perhaps more a papering over the cracks.

That paper is now badly torn. Deep-seated fissures, long in existence, can no longer be ignored.

If nothing else, commentators agree, the red-shirts have achieved that much.
Bloody history

Thailand lived under variations of military rule most of the time since the 1932 constitution, during World War II, into the 1970s.

On 14 October 1973, more than 70 protesters were killed and 800 were injured when troops opened fire on huge demonstrations held in support of pro-democracy students.

The then military government collapsed; a new constitution and new elections in six months followed.

On 26 September 1976, two students were garrotted and hanged, allegedly by police. Thousands of students gathered in their support and against military rule.

Two weeks later, on 6 October, that tension exploded into the killing by soldiers, police and right-wing mobs of at least 46 people. Students said many more died.

This moment marked the end of a democratic period, and caused parts of a generation to flee to the hills, joining a communist movement which was later decimated.

Troops on the streets of Bangkok in May 1992 Street fighting in 1992 left scores of people dead

By 1980, Gen Prem Tinsulanonda was appointed prime minister after a fellow general had ruled for three years following an October 1977 coup.

Gen Prem is now chairman of the Privy Council, and a target of red-shirt ire for what they claim was his role in the 2006 coup.

Coups and wobbly coalition governments led by appointed prime ministers carried Thailand into 1992, when Chamlong Srimaung led protests against the choice of Gen Suchinda Kraprayoon as prime minister.

King Bhumiphol Adulyadej famously called the two men into his presence to end fighting on the streets in mid-May that year, which had left scores dead, many injured and more than 2,000 people missing.
Back to future

Elections in September 1992 produced a Democrat-led coalition, with Chuan Leekpai as prime minister.

Thaksin Shinawatra proved very popular but highly divisive

Two years later, a telecommunications tycoon called Thaksin Shinawatra made his political debut, under the wing of Mr Chamlong.

In 1995, Mr Chamlong led his Palang Dharma party out of the coalition, causing the Chuan government to fall. Mr Thaksin was deputy prime minister in the next government.

Two coalition governments later, General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh was prime minister - he is now chairman of Mr Thaksin's Peua Thai Party.

The 1997 economic crisis brought back the Democrats under Mr Chuan. But elections in January 2001 gave Mr Thaksin a resounding win.

Mr Thaksin used this to accrue wealth and power across a range of Thai institutions. He earned a shocking human rights record and quashed the free press, but poured money into rural areas usually starved of attention.

In elections in 2005 he again won by a landslide, with the highest voter turnout in Thai history. He called another, snap, election in 2006, which the Democrat opposition boycotted. His win was ruled invalid by the constitutional court on 8 May 2006.

Plans for elections in October were foiled by the 19 September coup in 2006. Since then, two Thaksin-allied governments have been elected and stymied by court actions, leading to the current Democrat government, elected by another vote in parliament, not a general election.

Determining whether current troubles are sudden and shocking, or in fact an outgrowth of a long history of conflict - discussion of which has been suppressed by censorship and strict lese majeste laws - all depends on where you choose to start.

Whatever version of the recent past is chosen, neither violence nor a death-defying commitment to democracy is unusual in Thai politics.