Fifa Ranking

FIFA RANKING

India has reached its worst position in football. As per the latest FIFA ranking, India’s position is 173 out of 209. Over the years, there has been a steady decline in the standard of Indian football and during the last 20 years we have fallen from 100 to 173. Football was the most popular sport in the country till few years ago and several national level tournaments were being held at various parts of the country. Even in a tiny state like Kerala 7 national level tournaments were being held. In other words, 7 out of 10 district headquarters were hosting major tournaments. In those days, matches were being played in front of jam packed gallery and many had to return disappointed without getting ticket. DCM trophy football tournament was one of the prestigious tournaments in the country and many popular teams from South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Iran etc used to participate in that tournament. Even the king of football Pele representing Cosmos Club New York participated n a friendly match with Mohun Bagan at salt lake stadium Calcutta.

Golden era of Indian football was in the sixties. India was soccer champions at 1962. Jakarta Asian games.  India reached quarter finals of 1960 Rome Olympics and we were in a tough group comprising Hungary, France and Peru. We lost to Hungary by a narrow margin of 2-1 and drew 1-1 with powerful France.   We can remember those days with nostalgia only. Today we find it difficult to beat minnows like Nepal, Bhutan etc. in SAF games.

There was a proposal to bid for world cup football. For god’s sake let us not do that blunder. Host team will automatically qualify for the final round matches. We will have to helplessly watch the massacre of the host. It will only help to create some world records like maximum number of goals in a match, maximum goals conceded by a team etc. Moreover conducting a world cup will entail enormous expenditure which will be followed by another major scam.

When will India be able to regain a semblance of its glorious past?

Defence Awards

Letter to Editor

Defence Awards

President of India conferred various military awards like PVSM, AVSM, Shaurya chakra etc at the defence investiture ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Saturday. PVSM is awarded in recognition of peace time services of the most exceptional order. AVSM is given to recognize distinguished service of an exceptional order to all the rank of the armed forces. All the award winners of PVSM and AVSM are high ranking defence officials. It appears that primary consideration for conferring these awards is rank and exceptional service criteria are only secondary. Accordingly all the higher awards are cornered by senior officials. During the British rule, rules and procedures were made in such a way to give undue benefit to the rulers and high officials. It is unfortunate that even after about seven decades of independence we are blindly (or deliberately?) following the same old practices and precedents. Otherwise how is it that not a single lower rank official or jawans is there in the list of awardees? Does the Defence Ministry want the public to believe that nobody below the rank of Major General or equivalent has done any exceptional service? The tragedy in India is that while we eulogies small achievements of big people out of proportion, spectacular achievements of ordinary mortals on many timers go unnoticed, unheard and unsung. It is high time that we should change our mindset and start honouring exemplary services irrespective of the rank. Conferring an award to lower ranked defence personnel for their commendable service will be a great motivating factor to the defence forces as a whole. Earlier the Bharat Ratna award was predominantly given to politicians. Government made a welcome departure from this practice by conferring it on people who have excelled in other fields also. We should make a departure in this case also by conferring these awards to exceptional services of ordinary jawans also. 

E M Adithyan

  23^rd March2015

Elangalloor Mana

Edapal-679576

Kerala

Reservation for OBCs

Letter to the EDITOR

                                           Reservation for OBCS

In a landmark judgement, Supreme Court struck down the notification to include Jats in the list of Other Backward Classes. The government notification was purely on political grounds with an eye on the vote bank. Supreme Court’s observation that caste cannot be the sole decider of backwardness of a class is pertinent. Politicians cutting across party affiliations joined hands to oppose the judgement. It is the ‘boon’ of Indian politics that they will come together forgetting their ideological differences (if at all there is an ideology) on matters of mutual interest and issues of national importance. A classic example is the solidarity shown while passing the bill for increase in pay and perks of MPs. It is unfortunate that more and more powerful groups are clamouring to include their caste in the OBC category. India may be perhaps the only country where people want to become backward. 

Our founding fathers, while drafting the constitution had enunciated a reservation policy for a limited period, for the emancipation of those who were socially, educationally and economically backward at that time. Over the years, many families have availed the benefit of ‘backwardness’ for the second generation and some even for the third generation. How is it that the son/ daughter of an IAS officer, doctor, engineer etc can still considered being backward and avail the backward class concession? The benefits of reservation are cornered by a few influential people and the condition of the poorest of poor remains the same. Thousands of talented youngsters are not able to pursue their studies/passion in any field due to acute poverty and there is nobody to support them.

The protagonists of reservation policy do not seem to realise that, this policy has of late   become counterproductive because reservation creates a sense of complacency leading to inefficiency. This irrational and illogical policy is largely responsible for the gradual erosion of efficiency especially in our government offices.

Politicians want to keep people backward by providing reservation and freebies to protect their vote bank and to keep them under their citadel. If a country like Japan with meager resources can become one of the most advanced countries of the world, there is no justification why a country like India with a reservoir of resources (natural, mineral, forest, water, human etc) should lag behind. Common man should come out of the clutches of these politicians and wield their power to force their elected representatives to work for the welfare of the nation instead of working for own and party’s welfare. Otherwise our students of economics and commerce will continue to chant the age old slogan that India is a rich country inhabited by poor people.   

It is high time to stop reservation and instead provide all facilities and incentives to the real backward class people (including economically backward) so that they can come to national mainstream and compete with others in all walks of life. Otherwise the backward classes will remain backward as long as the reservation policy exists. Caste based reservation is primarily responsible for spreading the virus of casteism and communalism in the country. We should remove the column ‘caste’ (and religion also?)  from all our forms.

E M Adithyan

22^nd March2015

Elangalloor Mana

Edapal-679576

Kerala

PATHETIC STORY OF A LEGENDARY ATHLETTE

Pathetic story of a legendary athlete

“Unable to bear the acute hunger, I had to eat mud and my mother silently watched the horror with tears rolling down her eyes” Legendary athlete OP Jaisha told during the course of an interview with a Journalist. She belonged to a very poor family and her father was a daily wage earner. She is the fourth daughter of her parents.  They were able to survive with the small earnings of her father. Her father met with a Bus accident, while going for work and was bed ridden.  There after her mother had to suffer untold miseries, hardships, trials and tribulations. Family income was totally dependent on a cow which was insufficient for the treatment of her husband and two square meals for the children. Being the youngest child, Jaisha was lucky to get some “Kanji vellam” (Rice boiled with lot of water), while her sisters slept empty stomach on many days.

Fighting against all these odds, she became a top class athlete. Her dedication, devotion and determination can be gauged from the fact that with just 3 months training she participated in Mumbai Marathon and not only won the race in 2:37:29 but also broke the 20 year old record on her debut. In the recently concluded National Games, she won gold in 10000 Meters in a record time of 33 Minutes and 8.55 seconds. She finished far ahead of her competitors and even the second placed athlete was more than one lap behind her. She also won the 5000 meters race comfortably. Jaisha won several medals at National/ International competitions including Asian Games, Asian Athletic Championship and Commonwealth Games. She is a golden girl with nerves of steel. Her performance is unparalled, incredible, unprecedented and amazing. She is our best bet for an Olympic Medal as she has the potential to improve tremendously.

Notwithstanding all her superlative performance, she could not find a sponsor despite knocking several doors. While we eulogies some sports persons, treat them as demy gods, shower them with awards, rewards, medals, money etc, it is unfortunate that a highly talented athletic prodigy could not get a sponsor. She is arguably the best athlete India has produced after P T Usha. Legends are born once in a blue moon and we should not allow slipping this opportunity. History will not forgive us for this lapse. There is not an iota of doubt that given the best training, best diet and much needed international exposure, she will make her career best performance in the future sports meets and take the country to the pinnacles of glory.

Let us fervently hope that she will soon get a sponsor to fulfill the great Indian dream of winning an athletic medal at the Olympics which was narrowly missed by Milkha Singh and P T Usha.