International anxiety over Delhi's state of preparedness for the Commonwealth Games next year has raised considerable heat.
International anxiety over Delhi's state of preparedness for the Commonwealth Games next year has raised considerable heat. Most of the stadiums and venues are clearly woefully behind schedule, despite Suresh Kalmadi's glib defence and the Dilli sarkar's protestations to the contrary. Amid the recriminations in the media and elsewhere, Commonwealth Games Federation Chief Michael Fennell has urged direct intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to save the Games.
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Ma'am, what's the game plan? Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit checks out the model of a stadium for the 2010 Commonwealth Games |
Meeting hard deadlines is not a quality one usually associates with Indian planners, so the anxiety is understandable. Yet Sheila Dikshit and Co cannot afford to lose time due to bureaucratic wrangling and plain ineptness. There is simply too much riding on them, not to mention India's fond hopes of bidding for the 2024 Olympics.
So, there is renewed scrambling among the netas and babus to untangle the infrastructural knots that are obstructing them. In the meantime, Dilliwalas are looking forward to some lessons in manners promised by the Dilli sarkar and proved by Chidambaram. What to do, we are like this only!
Clean justice
The silence on controversial Karnataka Chief Justice P D Dinakar's elevation to the Supreme Court is likely to be broken soon. Delhi is still murmuring and it's clearly only a momentary respite for those who wish to push his case for elevation further. The allegations against the Karnataka CJ have added a certain urgency to the growing movement for increased transparency in judicial appointments and the prickly issue of weeding out corrupt judges. Judges are the ones most upset about how this matter is tarring them.
As of now, judges are split over declaring their assets. While a few judges have opted for transparency, others are still holding out. Meanwhile, the wheels are moving and Delhi's response to the Dinakar issue may well indicate which way they turn.
Widely regarded as India's "Image Guru", Dilip Cherian is lobbyist, celebrity creator and tycoon watcher. He currently parties on a 24/7 schedule that mixes cities nixes bores, and analyses Dilli
