[Leica] Commonwealth Games

[jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)]

Geoff,
I just said media, which included ours! There are so many TV news channels
around (7 national news channels in English alone, and dozens more in the
many local languages) that each anchor thinks that the only way to attract
attention is to scream his lungs off on any minor thing. They are extremely
irritating on a day to day basis - but this competitive approach has a good
side, too - they also are bringing to light many more instances of
corruption, misuse of power, etc.

There is another point that I forgot to mention last time - when all this
brouhaha on Delhi was going on, apparently your security and media forgot to
tell your cricket team not to come  - they were in India on a tour. Of
course they come pretty often, understand the ethos of India, and not
insignificantly earn tons of money here either by endorsements or in the IPL
(I root routinely for Mathew Hayden, Doug Bollinger and Mike Hussey when
they represent Chennai Super Kings in the IPL).

By the way banning cameras, food and liquid is standard  security procedure
here for all major sporting events that draw big crowds, like cricket test
or one day matches and all IPL matches, and has been for over 10 years now.

Cheers
Jayanand


On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 4:14 AM, Geoff Hopkinson <hopsternew at 
gmail.com>wrote:

> Jayanand I agreed that India is entitled to be proud of her games. What  I
> commented on was your calling the athletes that did not attend ignorant and
> also on some parts of the security apparatus that I personally thought were
> wrong. Specifically keeping all spectators away from the road events and
> banning cameras completely for spectators entering Games venues. Those are
> both areas of interest to me. I have been a (very amateur) marathoner well
> before I was a photographer. I have met people like Rob deCastella way back
> in the 80's and mentally!! run along side champions like that into the
> stadiums to the roar of the crowd many many times since.
> I said nothing about the media reporting and I have seen some of your press
> as well as ours here. Yours are hardly paragons of objectivity and
> restraint
> either!
>
> Cheers
> Geoff
> http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman
>
>
> On 16 October 2010 17:21, Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>
> > Geoff,
> > There is ignorance here as anything else, whipped up by the media -
> > after all most athletes are quite ignorant of world realities. Before
> > the games, reading media coverage, one would feel that if you set foot
> > in Delhi, you would either get targeted by militants or be consumed by
> > dengue fever or have a stadium roof fall on your head or be bitten by
> > a cobra. In reality, I would rather walk the streets of Mumbai late at
> > night rather than New York, despite the appalling poverty. But then, I
> > have been to both places, so I can make up my own mind....
> >
> > Cheers
> > Jayanand
> >
> > On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Geoff Hopkinson <hopsternew at 
> > gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > I thnk that is a very harsh comment on those athletes. Some actually
> > > just made commercial decisions, others were unwilling to accept the
> > > risk and there was a risk, very thankfully not eventuating.
> > > "without a hitch' might be a very generous assessment too, if you are
> > candid!
> > > Certainly India is justifiably proud with the Games, as every host
> > > country is too.
> > > Personally I was sad that it was judged necessary to keep every
> > > spectator from the courses for the road cycling and the marathons.
> > > Perhaps it is a necessity or at least a symptom of today's security
> > > restrictions.
> > >
> > > To pass through the security checks to enter a games venue you must
> > > not have any items from the prohibited list. If you did have them and
> > > still wanted to enter , there was no provision to store them.
> > >
> > > Besides the obvious and sensibly banned items also prohibited were
> > > cameras, laptops and handy cams.
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > > Geoff
> > > http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman
> > >
> > > NO ARCHIVE
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 16 October 2010 15:38, Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >> I bet all the ignorant athletes from Australia and England who dropped
> > >> out just before the CWG  are regretting it now! Went off without a
> > >> hitch, both in terms of facilities and security (must have been the
> > >> No.1 target for a terrorist attack in the last two weeks):
> > >>
> > >>
> > http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/10/the_xix_commonwealth_games.html
> > >>
> > >> Cheers
> > >> Jayanand
> > >>
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