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'Shame Games' mar India's reputation - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source Sep 29 2010
The shambolic run-up to the Commonwealth Games has dashed India's hopes of showcasing itself as a dynamic emerging superpower and delivering an event to rival the spectacular Beijing Olympics, analysts say.
The country's old image of inefficient bureaucracy, poor infrastructure, graft and squalor has been broadcast around the world by the international sporting event, tagged India's "Shame Games" by the local media.
"We believe tourism will not suffer much, since tourists who visit India have mostly factored in the India of yore, with snake charmers, and its dirt," said Robinder Sachdev, president of Indian image consultancy Imagindia.
"But large-scale business and investment decisions in boardrooms will certainly be impacted by this colossal display of ineptitude," said Sachdev.
It is "a huge public spectacle of a large project gone wrong," he said.
The Commonwealth turmoil has been a blow to the vision the country hoped to project of a modern "shining" India that could deliver complex projects on time and within budget, analysts said.
The bad news reached a crescendo last week when a footbridge to the Games' centrepiece stadium collapsed and the Games governing body branded the athletes' village "******" and "uninhabitable".
The collapse raised doubts about the safety of other structures built for the Games, whose original cost was pegged by the government at less than $100-million in 2003 but which later estimates have put at up to $6-billion.
The Games should have given India a chance of "showcasing its rising economy, recent infrastructure development, and improved business environment", said Matt Robinson, a senior economist with the research arm of ratings giant Moody's.
The shambolic run-up to the Commonwealth Games has dashed India's hopes of showcasing itself as a dynamic emerging superpower and delivering an event to rival the spectacular Beijing Olympics, analysts say.
The country's old image of inefficient bureaucracy, poor infrastructure, graft and squalor has been broadcast around the world by the international sporting event, tagged India's "Shame Games" by the local media.
"We believe tourism will not suffer much, since tourists who visit India have mostly factored in the India of yore, with snake charmers, and its dirt," said Robinder Sachdev, president of Indian image consultancy Imagindia.
"But large-scale business and investment decisions in boardrooms will certainly be impacted by this colossal display of ineptitude," said Sachdev.
It is "a huge public spectacle of a large project gone wrong," he said.
The Commonwealth turmoil has been a blow to the vision the country hoped to project of a modern "shining" India that could deliver complex projects on time and within budget, analysts said.
The bad news reached a crescendo last week when a footbridge to the Games' centrepiece stadium collapsed and the Games governing body branded the athletes' village "******" and "uninhabitable".
The collapse raised doubts about the safety of other structures built for the Games, whose original cost was pegged by the government at less than $100-million in 2003 but which later estimates have put at up to $6-billion.
The Games should have given India a chance of "showcasing its rising economy, recent infrastructure development, and improved business environment", said Matt Robinson, a senior economist with the research arm of ratings giant Moody's.
