Ajay Maken, our Sports Minister had a good thought. A lot of sports bodies receive crores of rupees, so why not get them under greater public scrutiny? Even though the BCCI does not receive government funding directly, it deals with hundreds of crores and as reported on the NDTV website, it is under investigation for foreign exchange violations during the IPL. The BCCI is a private organization but claims to select India's "national" cricket team. So it makes perfect sense to bring it under public scrutiny. Further logically speaking if there are no skeletons to hide the organization then there should ideally be no panic reaction to Maken's proposal.
Did the cabinet agree to this proposal? Well, there are no prizes for guessing the answer. Farooq Abdullah among others opposed an upper age limit clause. He said by that yardstick he should not have been a cabinet minister too (hmm, is that such a bad idea?). If the esteemed minister uses his good judgement it would be perfectly obvious that for a minister's post age can actually be advantageous because of the experience carried with it. For sports on the other hand, I do not think most would agree that the younger the administrator and the more related to that sport the administrator is the better it is.
Another clause seeks to restricts terms to 2. For as long as I remember, Kalmadi has been the head of the IOA. See where he is today (and where for that matter our Olympic performance is). Apparently a very significant portion of sports bodies are headed by politicians. This is not restricted to any one party, but is common across the political spectrum.
Thus in my humble opinion it makes perfect sense to have some government oversight on our sports bodies and to bring all of them under the RTI. However if members of the cabinet already hold positions on sports bodies does it make sense to expect the cabinet to come to an impartial and objective conclusion? Sharad Pawar, our Agriculture Minister actually asked the Prime Minister to reduce his work load so that he could spend more time on cricket! Is it any wonder that food inflation is so high and Indian agriculture is said to have stagnated in its growth? Now coming to the title. Sharad Pawar is reported to have said in the cabinet discussion that if the bill was approved by the cabinet he would take up the issue with Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the UPA. Keeping aside the practicality of this when she is supposed to be recovering from surgery, doesn't this sound childish? It is like two kids fighting, one kids hits the other, and the hurt kid bawls, "I am going to tell mummy!"
Dear people, this is the Indian government!
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