Apr 29
The Commonwealth Games is one of the largest sporting events to hit Delhi for a long time, maybe being the biggest event after the Asian Games in 1982. Getting the games here was a major event for Delhi, something that was hard fought. Countries fight for the privilege, since it adds to the prestige of the host city and country, brings in a large number of tourists, and is supposed to bring an economic boost to the country (however, the Olympics have not really done a boost in a number of prior cases, and caused a loss in some specific examples (if you include specific problems such as high cost of security, cost of revamping infrastructure).
But for a lot of people in Delhi, the anticipation of the forthcoming games is to ensure that they happen on time, and get over, with the expectation that things will come back to normal after that. Right now, if you look at a large number of places in Delhi, they are under some form of construction or the other. Some parts like the extension of the Metro is not linked to the Games as such, but a lot of the other sections such as beautification of roads and pavements, the widening of roads and flyovers, the construction of new roads and flyovers, etc are really causing a huge problem in Delhi.
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Apr 21
It seemed like a small issue, and initially, we could not believe it. How can Lalit Modi, who otherwise seemed such a successful organizer (and would have had to overcome so many obstacles including people trying to take his position) find himself in such a position. And the more so with Shashi Tharoor, who had been a diplomat for so long that one would have thought that he could make his way out of any sticky position (as he had done so earlier with his many comments on Twitter).
And yet both of them found themselves in a conflict, and both turned out to be losers. Shashi Tharoor was clearly trying to take some financial advantage by using his good offices to get many of the buyers of the Kochi IPL team together; in itself, this was not something new (one would think that most politicians use all opportunities to make money). What seemed to be clear was that he did not know the ways in which to do this in a way that provides deniability. Further, so far, IPL seemed to be a non-controversial event for the media, and now that they saw a good juicy controversy, they jumped into this issue with full gusto and started digging to get more details.
One of the interesting subplots to emerge from all this has been the issue around Sharad Pawar. Even though he is a Minister in the Congress Government, the Congress has no love lost for him, and would use whatever opportunity they could find to cut him down to size. This latest controversy seems to be giving the Congress a way to target not only Pawar, but the NCP as well. Right now, we are hearing about how there are reports implicating the son-in-law of Sharad Pawar, as well as another minister of the NCP, the Civil Aviation Minister.
Lalit Modi on the other hand is not going down as easily as some would have liked. He is refusing to attend the special session called to throw him out, and even questioning the special session. And given that he would have so many secrets, it is not so easy to consider that he will go away easily; even more so since you consider that such a move out will leave him with no further authority.
Apr 01
Mamta Banerjee, as many of her allies know, is very unpredictable. Initially in the Congress, she separated and went on her own lonely path. However, given the over-bearing presence of the Left Front as the long ruling leader of West Bengal, she had to ally with the Congress to increase her resources and be able to bring more force to her opposition. Over a period of years, the Left Front was losing support in the rural areas, with this support going to Mamta’s Trinamool Congress. However, it was in the agitations against the land acquisition policies of the Left Front that she finally reached her peak level of support. She went hammer and tongs against the efforts by the CPM (pushed primarily by the Chief Minister with the half-hearted support of many in the party) to acquire land for setting up industrial complexes as well as the more famous Tata Nano factory (and finally went on a hunger strike on behalf of the protesting farmers whose land was acquired). She was finally able to get the companies to reverse their decisions, and also essentially get the Left Front Government to reverse its policy of trying to setup industrial complexes by acquiring land from farmers. In all this, she took the support of a wide variety of forces and people, including (as is widely speculated) of the Naxalities. They are also supposed to have worked in her favor during the various levels of elections to get her more support.
However, with an increased support base, she is now a prominent minister in the UPA Government, influencing the policies of the Congress led Government. This also means that she has to now be a party to the policies of the Government, including the operations that the Government has launched against the Naxalites.
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