South Africa, with all its prior doubts and critics, has written history by hosting a successful world class game. Long period of one month has raised doubts in the minds of all the people whether an African country, into the clutches of Poverty, history of racial wars and AIDS, would be able to host a mammoth game like Football World Cup. But the way they prepared has a great lessons for India which is going to host another major sports event Common Wealth(CW) Games. They started preparing for the event in late 2006 and Stadiums were made ready by 2009. After that only regular daily care was left to done. Hosting such a grand sport event offered advantage in three ways. Firstly it showed the ability of South Africa to host a world class event that puts it at world stature. Secondly it has recognized its hidden potential in a global game like Football. High skilled shown by South Africa team and fantastic display of Ghana till the quarter final was exemplary. This will definitely change the way football was seen in Africa by a common man prior to the World Cup. Thirdly it has proved economically beneficial. Total expenditure in the preparation of the game was approx $ 4 bn ( 20,000 cr), while the revenue generated was approx $ 5 bn (25,000 cr). A clear cut profit of $ 1 bn which is nonetheless huge.
These are my comments on various current issues. If you like or dislike any arguement please put your comment and reason. It may be mutually helpful for both of us.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Commonwealth Games: Perfect Blend of Extravagance, Poor Accountability, Lack of Vision and Mismanaged Resources
South Africa, with all its prior doubts and critics, has written history by hosting a successful world class game. Long period of one month has raised doubts in the minds of all the people whether an African country, into the clutches of Poverty, history of racial wars and AIDS, would be able to host a mammoth game like Football World Cup. But the way they prepared has a great lessons for India which is going to host another major sports event Common Wealth(CW) Games. They started preparing for the event in late 2006 and Stadiums were made ready by 2009. After that only regular daily care was left to done. Hosting such a grand sport event offered advantage in three ways. Firstly it showed the ability of South Africa to host a world class event that puts it at world stature. Secondly it has recognized its hidden potential in a global game like Football. High skilled shown by South Africa team and fantastic display of Ghana till the quarter final was exemplary. This will definitely change the way football was seen in Africa by a common man prior to the World Cup. Thirdly it has proved economically beneficial. Total expenditure in the preparation of the game was approx $ 4 bn ( 20,000 cr), while the revenue generated was approx $ 5 bn (25,000 cr). A clear cut profit of $ 1 bn which is nonetheless huge.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Myth of Economic Growth: Human Development Report 2009
But let us take a pause and take actual account of the impact of this much talked about Economic Growth on Human development. Here comes the mother of all human development reports, the UNDP's own Human Development Report (HDR) 2009. HDR is a precisely calculative data based on life expectancy, literacy, per capita income and overall health and well being of a certain population over a period of time. It is considered as the best measure of development globally. Latest report 2009 give India the rank of 134, with a score of 0.612, which in no way allow us to boast of our economic growth. Though our score has improved in last 10 years but rank has remained stick to the worst performing countries. Because of the precision and authenticity, HDR is actually a good way to make comparision with our own past years record and with other countries as well. Norway, Australia, Ireland, Iceland etc remained at the top positions with the score of more than 0.965 (near perfect 1). Even many African and less known countries are far better than us like Libiya-0.847, Mauritius- 0.804, Gabon- 0.755, Algeria- 0.754 etc.
Our competitive neighbour China has given spectacular show in the improvement. Here is the a data that shows China's remarkable stride towards human development.
Rank (2009) Score 2009 2000 1975
India 134 0.612 0.577 0.407
China 92 0.772 0.726 0.523
World map indicating the Human Development Index (based on 2007 data, published on October 5, 2009)
0.950 and over 0.900–0.949 0.850–0.899 0.800–0.849 0.750–0.799 | 0.700–0.749 0.650–0.699 0.600–0.649 0.550–0.599 0.500–0.549 | 0.450–0.499 0.400–0.449 0.350–0.399 under 0.350 Data unavailable |
This is a list of all countries by Human Development Index as included in a United Nations Development