Mixed reactions to the bill

Proposed law seen to tilt heavily in favour of consumers

The Cabinet nod for the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill 2013 is expected to bring in transparency in the real estate sector, promote fair trade practices and safeguard the interest of end users and investors. This Bill seeks to create a regulator for the real estate sector to protect interests of buyers by providing a uniform regulatory environment. The Bill, which shall oversee only the residential real estate sector, will be presented during the monsoon session of the Parliament, in August 2013. Ajay Maken, minister for housing and poverty alleviation, expects the Bill to reduce prevailing rampant corruption in the real estate and housing sector. “Not only will it protect the rights of home buyers, it will also bring in greater transparency. Developers will be restricted from channelizing funds collected from customer for one project to another one, which will provide better security to the home buyers’ investments.”

The proposed legislation has many provisions to benefit home buyers. For instance, the legislation makes it mandatory for developers to launch projects only after getting all the necessary approvals. This is expected to restrict realty companies from pre-launching their projects without clearances. Launching pre-launch offers through advertisements and special invitations is a common practice followed by developers. However, this is completely illegal as developers are selling apartments even before the grant of the licence to develop the property. The legislation will make it necessary for builders to get all important clearances before they sell apartments. The Bill also says developers will have to submit a detailed project report that will include the completion date, land title, and the names of architects and agents to get approval. "By imposing strict regulations on the promoter, the Bill looks to ensure that construction is completed on time, and on completion the buyer gets a property that matches the promised specifications," says Anuj Puri, Chairman, Jones Lang LaSalle India.

However, the developer and broker community, has expressed mixed feelings towards the regulation. The bill has made project construction time bound but it hasn’t ensured the same for government clearances. Delay in project clearances is bound to escalate costs and impact project viability. “To make the regulation effective, the Bill should regulate the entire real estate industry covering all the stake holders like the competent authority, local authorities, financial institutions, electricity board, water board, fire department, etc.,” says C Shekar Reddy, national president, Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India.

While consumers need protection, for real estate development to happen more efficiently, administrative reforms are required urgently. Hence the Bill should also take a dispassionate view of the challenges faced by developers.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

'Modi is good news for us'

Excerpts from an exclusive interview with Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tiwari.

How does the Congress react to Modi’s appointment?
We are happy that it is turning out to be a Rahul Gandhi vs Narendra Modi contest, as predicted. We believe it will benefit us because we will be able to establish our secular credentials even better.

People are talking about the Gujarat model.
The Gujarat model may not be accepted by all. It may not work in Bihar where Nitish Kumar was the first to outline his opposition to Modi. Jayalalitha says Modi is a friend but there is no question of an electoral tie up. Sharad Yadav says the NDA is in coma. There are ample indications that Modi is not going to be accepted even by his allies.

Modi is going to attack the Congress on corruption and inflation.
When the Rahul vs Modi mood catches on, voters will judge for themselves who is better of the two. Nitish is not willing to go with Modi because his Muslim votes will desert him. That applies to the rest of the country as well. Modi cannot match Rahul’s image.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Disappearing diplomats

Shortage of diplomats is affecting India's foreign policy

“There are some 25 diplomatic positions in Missions/Posts abroad currently vacant,” was the response given by Preneet Kaur, the Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs to the ‘Unstarred Question No. 2024’ asked in Lok Sabha on December 05, 2012. Such a scenario is enough to raise eyebrows about India's international standing.

The recent foreign policy failures have pointed out that these vacancies are affecting India's image as an emerging power. This also puts a question mark on India's commitment towards diplomacy and towards hundreds of consulates present worldwide. The recent case of Italian mariners being allowed to go back and the death of prisoner Sarabjit Singh in Pakistan clearly indicate that India’s foreign policies have failed. BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi aptly said, “Government of India should take stern and effective steps in this case. Sarabjit's incident proves that India's diplomatic clout and foreign policy has been totally demolished.”

There is not even a second’s doubt that shortage of diplomats interrupts the smooth flow of information and information to the Ambassadors/High Commissioners thus creating a fissure during important negotiation meetings. Understaffed embassies spell more trouble for Ambassadors than in embassies with no Ambassadors. Back in 2006, the Indian embassy in Qatar faced serious trouble in their daily working due to shortage of staff. The embassy had to be kept closed for several hours everyday in order to manage the high footfall.

After long struggling with Pakistan, now India's border issue with China has become an issue of serious concern. Even though this issue may not be a direct case of shortage of diplomats, but it does indicate the failure of our diplomacy initiatives. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development has been advocating recruitments of experts in the Indian Foreign Service. He has seen the situation first hand when he had served as Minister of State for the Ministry of External Affairs.

There are more diplomats posted in Delhi alone compared to the number of Indian diplomats deployed in the entire world (outside India). Putting this into perspective, there are more people working towards Indian foreign policy than Indian diplomats negotiating with the entire world. Currently, India has only 600 diplomats worldwide, which is comparable to the likes of countries like Belgium and Netherlands, and is nowhere near the strength of US and Chinese diplomats. Even a small nation like Singapore has more diplomats than India.

As an emerging superpower, India needs around 1200 diplomats by 2040, while during the same period, China has estimated a need for around 10,000 diplomats across the globe. With global balance shifting in favour of India, there is an increase in foreign interference.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Can Nokia really pull itself up again?

Nokia is fighting really hard to stage a comeback to the Indian market. First a deal with Microsoft and then a slew of product launches, including the Windows based Lumia, Nokia is pulling every string to bring back those good ol’ days. But can it? By Anirudh Raheja

It was in the year 1995, when Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia had entered the Indian terrain and within no time, it found itself in a pioneering role to shape the growth of the Indian cellular industry when there was hardly any serious competition. In fact, over the years, it churned out a range of handsets across the price pyramid starting from low-cost ones like Nokia 1100 in 2003, and ensured that product features were in tune with Indian conditions. It also kept on unleashing smartphones like N95, based on Symbian and eventually bought the company in 2008.

Interestingly, that was approximately the time when tide started turning as Nokia lost its steam to the relative smartphone upstarts like Apple and Samsung. Even on the low end, players like Micromax, Karbonn, etc ensured that Nokia had to battle harder for every inch of space. And the trend continues till date. In fact, the handset manufacturer’s Q1 (2013) earnings report offers yet another reality check for its stakeholders.

To begin with, the single most glaring negative indicator is Nokia’s rather drastic decline in total mobile phone volume, both sequentially (-25% quarter-on-quarter) and yearly (-28% year-on-year). Although NSN (Nokia Siemens Networks), its joint venture with Siemens, records an operating profit of euro 3 million, it’s rather less than what one would hope for on sales of euro 2.8 billion. Overall, Nokia’s net sales are down globally 20% y-o-y indicating continued problems of selling its actual goods and services in every division, sector and geographical area.

In India too, as it is with other parts of the world, the company has made some serious strategic blunders that have led to serious corrections in its growth story. In fact, Nokia’s overdependence on the Symbian proved suicidal. Rather than developing a new operating software according to the dynamic market, Nokia bought over Symbian Ltd. in 2008 for $410 million to develop a better and update version of the OS. Interestingly, it was the time when Google’s free OS Android was introduced in the market. Symbian immediately came across as outdated, slow and considerably short on features compared to Android. Players like  Samsung, HTC and Huawei entered into strategic alliances with Google, after which they did not look back.

Today, it’s Samsung that rules the Indian smartphone market with 40.3% market share. Nokia, which once dominated it with about 80% market share, remains a distant second with just 25.5% market share (CyberMedia Research). What’s more? According to market tracker GfK-Nielsen’s data, Samsung has finally overtaken Nokia to become the largest seller of mobile phones in India’s major markets. The Korean giant’s volume market share in urban areas in March 2013 rose to 31.4%, surpassing Nokia’s 30.1%.

Hence, to ward off the blow the key for Nokia now, however, has to be its alliance with Microsoft as Windows based mobile phones made market-beating progress in 2012. The relationship is not only the key driver in Microsoft’s success, but has also benefited Nokia, which amassed 76.0% of all Windows Phone/Windows Mobile smartphone shipments in 2012. Confirms Vipul Mehrotra, Director, Smart Devices, IMEA, Nokia, “Windows 8 OS is now picking up steam in mobile devices and we will definitely be reaping the most of it.”


While Mehrotra sounds logical (given that IDC expects Windows OS to become one of the top platforms in the mobile space by 2015, at par with Android), the former giant now also needs to carve out new niches, as to unseat the Google-Apple duopoly is not an easy task, even with its partnership with Microsoft. No doubt, Nokia’s Lumia range finally seemed to be picking up some traction, with 5.6 million shipments in Q1 2013, but this was offset by Symbian shipments dropping to just 0.5 million. Moreover, Nokia’s feature phone business (which accounts for a majority of its total sales) seems to be collapsing, showing a 30% sequential decline and a 21% annual decline.

Certainly, Nokia faces a dramatically different situation today compared to 1995, when it had to battle with the disconnected marketing strategies of players like Siemens and Motorola. There has to be more of localisation in the app space. Nokia’s OVI store, which pales as compared to Android and Apple, should rope in more application developers with a focus on creating regional applications. Also, the company should first get its mass market strategy in order and push down its smartphone price points more aggressively to make them top performers in the lower end. Reason: Volume growth is clearly in favour of the smartphone segment. IDC projects mobile phone shipments to India to grow at a CAGR of 13.03% from 2011 to 2015 and reach 30 million by that calendar year. In contrast, smartphones are expected to clock a CAGR of 63.4% in the same period and reach 77.5 million by 2015.

Initial gains in this market will help Nokia build the momentum for sustainable market share. If you compare the lowest priced Nokia smartphone with its competitors currently, the company is still far from gaining that kind of edge. The Lumia 520 (launched on March 20, 2013) retails at Rs.10,499. In comparison, LG Optimus ME 350, Samsung Galaxy Y and Sony Xperia Mini are priced at Rs.6,400, Rs.7,000 and Rs.9,600 respectively. Not just this, Samsung has recently launched a new series of ‘smart’ feature phones with a price tag of Rs.4,000-6,500, taking rival Nokia’s Asha series of smartphones head on.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Back to square zero!

As big skeletons threaten to tumble out of the Saradha closet and Bengal’s feckless political parties blame each other for the mess, the defrauded are being left to count their losses, reports Snehangshu Adhikari
 

The Bengal Post closure notice was issued on the first day of April. It was a ‘joke’ all right, but for 28-year-old Supriti Gupta (name changed), it wasn’t funny at all. A month on, the young sub-editor hasn’t got over the shock. She had quit an established Kolkata-based English language newspaper with a history of over a hundred years to join The Bengal Post. The leap into the unknown ended in disaster for her and 1400 other employees of Saradha Group’s bloated and directionless media division.

These people worked for a wide array of publications and television channels: Sakalbela, Azad Hind, Tara News, Tara Muzic, Kalam, Tara Bangla, Prabhat Barta, Paroma (magazine) and the Seven Sisters Post. They were rendered jobless overnight because the man who ran the show, Sudipto Sen, realising that time was running out on his chit fund scam – and quite fast on all fronts– decided to post-haste close shop of 'group' companies, if one may use the term. Freelance journo and former Bengal Post staffer Sandhya Sutodia gave vent to her despair in a blog post. “The focus right now is to get our dues,” she said. “We have become the butt of ridicule. Media houses do not take us seriously. I am back to square one.” Square zero seems to be a more befitting term for almost all those affected by this mammoth financial crisis.

The present crisis has affected the employees of ten media products – newspapers and television channels – that Saradha had launched or acquired since 2010. But the worst hit are the about 2.5 to 3.5 lakh people who worked as collection agents for Saradha, and almost double that was the number of investors.

The suicide toll has already reached five since the news of the scam broke. Meanwhile, a second FIR has been filed against Kunal Ghosh (ex-CEO of Saradha’s media wing whose monthly salary was Rs 15 lakh) by employees of a closed Bengali daily, Sakalbela, for non-payment of salaries.

The case took a new twist when Sudipta Sen sent an 18-page letter to the CBI, naming 22 politicians (from Bengal, Assam, Odisha and Jharkhand), including two influential MPs of the ruling TMC, Kunal Ghosh and Srinjoy Bose. Not surprisingly, both the MPs denied the allegation.

Sen has said that getting into the media business was his greatest mistake. He has claimed that Kunal Ghosh (who allegedly forced him to take the media plunge) and Srinjoy Bose assured him that his business interests would be protected "as they have a very close connection" with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. CPM has dismissed Sen’s confession as an eyewash and an attempt to shield the state’s topmost politicians. During his interrogation, Sen is reported to have revealed the names of at least four key TMC ministers, besides a former minister in the Left Front government.

Established in 2006, Saradha Group expanded quickly. “I started my business not to become a rich man but to establish the ideals and ideologies of Maa Saradha, to help poor and needy people of rural and semi-urban areas of India,” Sen wrote in his letter to CBI.

However, the reality was just the opposite. He promised huge returns to the investors ranging from 15 to 50 per cent, and lured agents by committing to pay commissions ranging from 15 to 40 per cent. The group allegedly collected hundreds of crores of rupees particularly from people in villages and small towns, not only in Bengal, but also in Odisha, Jharkhand, Tripura and Assam.

Talking to the media, Saradha agents from East Midnapore alleged, “From our district alone, the Saradha Group collected more than Rs 100 crore by exploiting the post-Nandigram situation.”

“He would come to our agent meets quite regularly and motivate us to enhance our collection,” Ramapati Gayen, a duped investor told TSI. “He used to talk a lot about several future development projects in Nandigram. To win our trust, he would take us to his various ongoing projects. They were fake.”

It has been reported that in Chinsurah, Sen faked a full motorcycle factory to mislead thousands of depositors into believing that he had a running factory and they could trust him with their money. Reportedly, the downfall of the Saradha empire started in 2010, the year Sen launched his media business. That year, SEBI initiated an investigation into Saradha Realty after it received a reference from the director of Economic Offences Investigation Cell of the West Bengal government. The group, however, managed to delay the process by either submitting voluminous documents or by avoiding SEBI’s call.

Soon after Saradha went bust, Mamata Banerjee, blamed the 34 years of Left Front rule for the mess. At the same time, the involvement of TMC leaders has also come to the fore. During interrogation, Sen claimed that even CMO staff was paid monthly salaries by Saradha. Allegedly, the topmost leader of TMCP (TMC’s student wing) Shanku Deb Panda was also on Saradha’s payrolls. Former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya claimed, “I was in power for ten consecutive years, but never allowed such elements. But now the present government has become synonymous with chit funds.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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Countering terror with sticks

Questionable decisions by para-military bosses in Kashmir have endangered jawans' lives, says Mayank singh

While India’s chattering classes wage a seemingly endless battle against corruption and its elite celebrate the country’s growth trajectory popping champagne on ice, out on the frontiers its brave men from the para-military forces are putting their lives on line in what is turning out to be a campaign which is both brave and foolhardy. Brave because they are willing to do whatever is expected from them unmindful of the costs involved, their lives included, and foolhardy because they are being asked to accomplish a job that seems impossible – countering highly motivated, trained and armed terrorists with wooden sticks that would come handier walking pets than defending the country’s sovereignty!

“Mismanagement by senior officers, an utter lack of foresight and blatant violation of standard operating procedures (SOP) is why jawans are getting martyred in the line of duty on a daily basis in Jammu and Kashmir,’’ confides a senior officer.

Two recent incidents typify this callous neglect in the Kashmir valley. On March 13 this year fidayeens or suicide bombers entered the Bamina area of Srinagar and mowed at will CRPF jawans who had been ordered by the state police to report in riot control gear – which constitutes essentially of a wooden stick or a lathi and a padding to cover their bodies.

Naturally, questions are being asked. In a situation as volatile as the Kashmir valley, who in the Jammu and Kashmir police, as well as the CRPF, thought it prudent and conducive to let their men get into riot gear? What good is a riot gear when confronted with sophisticated assault rifles and improved explosive devices (IEDs)? Classified documents in possession of TSI reveal that against well laid down SOP, it is the local police which is ordering central paramilitary forces. The SOP lays down the bottom line: no operational strategy can be dictated by the local police and has to be made necessarily in consultation with the Inspector General of CRPF and the other paramilitary forces deployed in the region. The documents clearly establish this breach of protocol coupled with a deeply flawed analysis, essential to counter terror. Two orders were issued by the IGP Kashmir (IGPK) on February 9 and February 11 this year. In the February 9 order addressed to CRPF, the IGPK directed the induction of five CRPF counter-insurgency (CI) operation companies and five training companies at Baramulla.

It read: “These companies shall be fully equipped with riot control gear, no personnel should carry any weapon.” Why should an IGP ask for specialist CI platoon to be armed with wooden sticks?

More to the point, on what basis are riots in Jammu and Kashmir equated with similar disturbances in other parts of the country where the Rapid Action Force (RAF) model of deployment is in force: one third of the company in lathi, one third with tear gas shells and one third equipped with rifles?

In the February 11 order, IGP Srinagar sent a signal to all paramilitary head quarters of the Srinagar Area, CRPF, BSF and ITBP to, “make sure that no fire arm is carried on by any law and order component.”

The situation reports accessed by TSI and the Incident Note of the BSF makes it clear that terrorists camouflage themselves with locals and take advantage of such orders at all available instances. Not surprisingly, they successfully struck twice within a span of eight days. The life of a jawan, apparently, is so cheap that an experienced commander can take arbitrary decisions and throw SOP to the winds. The situation report and incident notes – preceded by many such earlier observations - have said that terrorists are frequently using the civil population as shield to fire on para-military forces. Says one such assessment sent by CRPF on March 29, “After completion of law and order duty at about 1915 hours left for battalion head quarters. When our troops were crossing from Macchuwa bridge towards Karawalpora, all of a sudden few people started pelting stones at our vehicle from the right side and after few seconds a round was fired from the left side. So, while stone pelters engaged the troops from the right side, terrorists used rifles from the left.’’ It  adds: “Two of our constables saw a person who waved his AK 47 rifle at a group of five to six people running from the spot.’’ The BSF has a similar tale to narrate. On the March 29 incident, “at about 0730 hrs, while the vehicle in front moved closer to the Nowgam crossing, Srinagar, suspected militants suddenly opened fire on the 5-ton vehicle moving in the rear. By the time they (troops) could take position, the vehicle had moved in front of the Ahmad Hospital and militants had by then disappeared into the by lanes of thickly populated Nowgam area.’’

In both instances, troops did not fire as the collateral damage would have been heavy and would have proved advantageous to separatists groups in rallying people to their cause. In such dangerous situations, the use of lathi or wooden sticks is nothing short of harakiri and officers on ground stand accused of blatantly jeopardising the life of ill-equipped jawans by not allotting sophisticated weapons to them. After all it in on the directives of field commanders that the fighters are willing to take huge risks and the latest orders and its subsequent impact is certain to hit the morale of troops present there.

The Union government's Group of Ministers (GoM) on Internal Security has clearly laid down that “in operations against insurgency, militancy and terrorism, arrangements for coordination of operational planning, deployment etc., should be evolved by the senior most officers representing the central armed forces, in close consultation with the state police chief and officers of other concerned agencies.’’ In reality, it looks the other way round.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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A tale of rotting structures

Many of Delhi’s sporting facilities built amid much fanfare for the 2010 Commonwealth Games are going to seed, writes Syed Khurram Raza

On January 10, 2012, Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium was packed to the rafters with football fans. They were there to watch former India captain Baichung Bhutia’s farewell match – an Indian XI was taking on Bayern Munich. It was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catch the likes of Muller, Gomez, Robben and Ribbery in live action. So the city’s soccer enthusiasts were willing to brave the stench around them.

Yes, stench. Not a seat, except a few in the VIP area, was clean and the toilets were as filthy as a pigsty. There was no way of telling that as much as Rs 1000 crore had been sunk a little over a year earlier into renovating the stadium for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium was built for the 1982 Asian Games, but since then it has seen very little sporting action with the exception of a few games of cricket and soccer. It is a veritable white elephant that seems to have achieved none of the great things it was projected to when it was constructed. The stadium is today a veritable junkyard, falling apart at the seams.

It is a painful example of how badly India manages its sporting infrastructure. A stadium is built for a particular event and then allowed to degenerate once it has served its immediate purpose. In the absence of a comprehensive sports policy, modern facilities built with the taxpayers’ money lie unused. Aspiring sportsmen have no access to these stadiums. “It is really pathetic. The Delhi government has yet to formalise a state sports policy,” says senior journalist Anil Sagar.

He adds: “When Ajay Maken was the Union sports minister, he had raised some hope and it seemed that Delhi sportspersons would finally be able to use this infrastructure. He had opened all stadiums for young children under the ‘come and play’ scheme. Unfortunately, his tenure was very short.”

The primary purpose of throwing open the stadiums was to impart professional training to beginners and established sportspersons. The objective was optimum utilization of this world class sporting infrastructure. But the ministry has not followed through with the grand plan.

Virender Singh Jaggi, assistant professor, Physical Education, Shyam Lal College, Delhi University and a good hockey player, says: “Due to the 1982 Asian Games and 2010 Commonwealth Games, we have got some world class sporting facilities. But if this infrastructure is not being used to train upcoming young talent then the whole purpose of hosting such big events stands defeated.”

He adds: “The connectivity of Shivaji Stadium is very good, but it is not being used to train young hockey players. The other sports complexes are given on a 40-60 basis to the academies. The academies keep 60 percent of the fee they charge from players and the remaining 40 percent is given to DDA.

He laments that instead of coming out with a plan to encourage children to participate in sports, the government is just doing the opposite. “If things continue like this, then rest assured that we will never see our national flag going up at any international sporting event,” he says.

Inveterate sports lover Mohd Shakir says: “The Delhi government spent around Rs 700 crore on stadiums and the Central government spent about Rs 300 crore on sporting infrastructure during 2010 Commonwealth Games. All the equipment bought for the Games is rotting.”
He believes the problem is societal. In the big cities, sport is often looked down upon. The emphasis is always on scoring high marks in examinations, never on sporting excellence.

Says Shakir: “To encourage children to come to school, free books, uniforms and midday meals given, but there is nothing free for sportspersons. Unless sport is an integral stream of our education system, things will not change and the money that is spent on hosting international sporting events will go waste.”

It is crystal clear that the official attitude towards sport is neither positive nor supportive. Says NK Bhatia, vice president of Delhi Soccer Association: “Ambedkar Stadium is the only football stadium in central Delhi. It is well connected from every corner of the city. The stadium had been favorite of several national and international players but very few matches are being hosted as the rent of the stadium had been increased from Rs 500 to Rs 5000 per day. Now it is becoming difficult for organizations and academies to host any match there. All these steps are to discourage sports lovers.”

It is imperative for the government to come with a clear policy to encourage maximum use of the existing sporting infrastructure in the big cities. Public sector companies should play an important role in funding and hosting major events. If the government does not come out with a concrete sports policy then despite the best infrastructure, our sportspersons will struggle to to make a mark in the international arena.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute