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FOR most people it must be hard to imagine what it must be like to be Suresh Kalmadi, the official monster of the Commonwealth Games (CWG).`A0Many had high hopes that the Games, to be held in Delhi from Sunday, were an occasion to place India on the world sporting map and to match India’s efficiency and prowess with that of China when it hosted the 2008 Olympics. But the daily round of bashing that the Games have been getting by the media, especially Kalmadi, has firmly put rest to that aspiration. Turn on the news channels at any point of time, and it is an unrelenting line-up of complaints about corruption, construction delays and cringing cockiness. In fact, there is not one good word, not one positive note being said about the Games. The yowl of despair is its most piercing on Times Now, partisan by calculation, followed by Headlines Today, partisan by imitation. Seeing the reportage and umpteen discussions aired by networks, you would believe that the public collectively and individually has been completely put off with the adverse publicity about the CWG. Personally, I am as
enraged and humiliated as any Indian about the sheer chaos surrounding
the Games — the sheer state of unreadiness, allegations of favours
given and merit denied, the hands-off attitude of the uppity goras,
leaving the natives carrying the can, but surely, there has to be some
positive spin-off from the Games known for their team spirit and
friendly competition. In the week before these begin, should the
electronic media hone only in on the bad and the ugly? Or should it also
examine other more upbeat aspects? Has the media gone overboard and
lost perspective? To use a regular Times Nowism, the nation deserves an
answer.
Over the last two days of concentrated viewing, I saw one silver lining story and that appeared on the BBC. The reporter was quizzing a man and a woman on the street for a feedback. Most of it was positive. Shopkeepers spoke of better business and Delhinew makeover; other people of India’s presence on the international`A0sports stage. CNN, too, gave us images of spiffy stadia and swimming pools, with the anchor completely mangling the pronunciation of Talkatora and Jawaharlal Nehru. This, of course, after the channel aired a still of a snake found, they said, in a tennis stadium. It was a sponsored feature on CNBC that fed us the good news element. It was in an exclusive to CNN-IBN’s Rajdeep Sardesai that Kalmadi — unfazed, unrepentant and adept master of buck passing — painted a rosy picture. A rosy picture was not what was being drawn by a stoic Commonwealth Games Federation President Michael Fennel to Karan Thapar on Devil’s Advocate. Fennel, choosing deliberately the middle path, refused to be baited by the normally acerbic Thapar, contenting himself by being equally supportive of the Indian Government’s efforts`A0and of Michael Hooper, CEO, CWG, role . Strangely, the running subtext in a lot of reporting has been the comparison with China.`A0From the CWG anthem to the preparations that have been made, it is China’s`A0example which has become the angry bull enraging the media. The other comparison is the successful Asian Games that took place in 1982 under the guardianship of Rajiv Gandhi. Comparisons are always odious, especially when they are not relevant. However successful, magnificent and inspiring they were, the Olympic Games took place under a Socialist dictatorship. The local media dared not articulate any small critique or squeak out any negative comment. The CWG are taking place`A0in a system which can be called democratic capitalism. Unlike 1982, today everyone with a cell-phone is a journalist, a media hound, able to sniff any transgression. Today technology and transparency have ensured that every little misdemeanour can be noted, doubly magnified and sent across to people with the speed of lightening. `A0That’s not necessarily a bad thing for accountability, but let’s face it, it is horrendous for public relations. |
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