For a Sporting India
As the Beijing Olympics gets closer, we must ponder as to what has stopped our players from winning medals at the Olympics so long, barring a very, very few exceptions, that too long ago.
India is obsessed with just one game — cricket. Our cricket players are God-like figures who are worshipped despite their flaws, because it gives relief to our psyche wounded for not having achieved anything spectacular in other areas of games and sports. This obsession with cricket must go if we are to rise as a sporting nation. True, there is a lot of money in cricket, and glamour too, especially after the IPL extravaganza. But it is also true that every game has some glamour — one can check out with the games played in the Olympics and the glamour associated with most of the games there. Look at the innovation too, with new sports being developed and added to the list.
There is potential in India for almost all the games and sports played in the Olympics. States like Manipur, for instance, have produced wonderful weightlifters and boxers. In fact, the tribal States of the Northeast would have produced great athletes, weightlifters and footballers had there been an initiative to identify talents and harness their potential.
It is time to establish coaching academies in the Northeast for Olympic sports. These academies are to be managed professionally. There must not be any room for politicians to carve out their space in sports bodies. In fact, politicians should be kept out of all sports bodies — these are institutions to be manned and managed by past sportsmen who will guide the youth to sporting excellence.
It is time for parents too to change their mindset. If they find that their children have an interest in any of the games and sports where they can prove their natural talent, the parents should encourage them to treat their sporting inclination as a career option. These children are then to be admitted to the proposed sports academies and groomed accordingly. Who knows we could have an Olympic gold medallist in one of them!
It is actually a matter of mindset. China is a great Olympic performer because its approach to games and sports is radical and, therefore, practical — there is no fixation with any particular sporting activity, but there is a great national initiative to reach out to every sporting activity and improve upon it. India should learn lessons from such countries and even emulate their games and sports regime. There is no harm in emulating good things.
Subrata Deka,
Khanapara, Guwahati-22.

Public Opinion
This refers to the public meetings held by ULFA’s 28 Battalion in upper Assam to mobilize public opinion on the issue of insurgency. It is good that the pro-talk ULFA leaders are now realizing the worth of public opinion. If the ULFA had realized that a few years go, it would have also realized that the people of Assam have never supported ‘‘sovereignty’’ for the State as demanded by the outfit. The ULFA would have realized that the people of Assam are happy to be in India because they are already sovereign.
The pro-talk ULFA leaders, led by Mrinal Hazarika, should now do away with the slogan of ‘‘sovereignty’’ and come up with something more meaningful for the sake of peace in the State and the progress of its people.
The pulse of the people is loudly audible. They have rejected the kind of militancy that the ULFA has chosen by naming it ‘‘revolution’’, because it is not militancy. It is terrorism. Therefore, the pro-talk leaders should rather join the mainstream at the earliest and then contribute to the development of the State. From the mainstream itself they may demand a special package for Assam. They may even contest elections and win if they can endear themselves to the masses.
JK Bora,
Guwahati-5.