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| Edited By: |Source: DNA |Updated: Sep 24, 2016, 08:10 AM IST
The idea that there should be a national plan and policy to win gold medals at the Olympic Games, the grandest athletics meet, is ridiculous. When the National Institution of Transforming India (NITI) Aayog writes a report and charts a roadmap for achieving the goal, it really becomes a farce. It is wonderful if Indian athletes outshine others at the Olympic as well as at other international competition. But it should come about in a natural manner. The sports infrastructure in the country should be improved, and young people should be encouraged to take part in sports but that should be an end in itself. Sport does not only keep the participants healthy and help them develop a sporting attitude — that is, to compete, to win but not to sulk when you lose, and not draw up national plans to win medals — and also make them socially well adapted citizens. But to subordinate excellence in sports to national goals is reprehensible. It takes away the idealism that sports seeks to inculcate, and turns it into a corporate target for increasing profits. There is nothing more moving than to hear the national anthem when an Indian athlete stands on the victory podium, but it does not mean that sports are to be made a ruthless instrument of ultra-nationalism. India is an ancient civilisation and it should not reduce itself into an upstart nation, which is what seeking gold medals in the Olympics will reduce the country to.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has apparently expressed his country’s interest to be part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in his meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The CPEC’s end-point is the Gwadar port. It is an important strategic development if Rouhani’s expression of interest in the project is followed up, and Tehran succeeds in being a part of the project because India and Iran are jointly developing the Chabahar port which is more or less along the same line as that of Gwadar. Iran and Pakistan share a common border south of Afghanistan and Balochistan. India was interested in the Chabahar port to get an access to the central Asian states and to the Caspian Sea region through Iran as India does not have a reliable trade route through Pakistan to Afghanistan and to central Asia. Perhaps it is a good idea that Iran’s participation will help in defusing India-Pakistan tensions and make the west end of South Asia a trade hub. It is however essential that Indian strategists — hawks and doves — understand the significance of Iran-Pakistan trade relations. It is to be noted that there are major differences between Islamabad and Tehran, with the United States being hostile to Iran and soft on Pakistan.
The BJP-led NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has acted wisely in its choice of the three outside members of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India, which will be responsible for setting the interest rates. The Cabinet committee of appointments has chosen Pami Dua, head of the Delhi School of Economics, Ravindra Dholakia from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and Chetan Ghate from the Indian Statistical Institute. When the idea of the MPC was mooted with the provision of three outside members to be appointed by the government, with the other three to be from the RBI, the suspicion arose that the government was trying to have its say in the matter of interest rates, and thus undermining the independence of the central bank and the committee. The three appointees have unimpeachable academic qualifications and that is good news for the country.
