Commonwealth shame scores high on Twitter

India jumped into the world’s twitter map on Thursday. The collapse of a bridge, coupled with the flash of photographs of filthy Games Village across cyberspace, has made the keywords ‘CWG’ and ‘Commonwealth Games’ as the seventh and 10th most tweeted topic in the world by the 190 million twitter community, this week.

Tweet trends in the UK and Australia show ‘Commonwealth’ as the most popular tweeted topic. India’s twitter map also shows CWG, and #CWG as the top-most tweeted keyword, followed by ‘Kalmadi’, ‘Ayodhya’, and ‘Verdict’.

The tweets started pouring from across the world as one of the most accessed news websites in the world, put India’s Commonwealth shame as lead stories on their home page on Thursday. The barrage of tweets from across the world peaked around 2 pm IST on Wednesday, and 3 pm on Thursday.

News coupled with splash of pictures of UK-based DailyMail’s expose of filthy conditions inside some rooms of the Games Village, resulted in angry comments from the world’s 190 million Twitter community. India’s shame splashed across world’s top media sites, made the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh himself step and take charge of the matter.

Some of the overseas web magazines tweeted about pullout of their local sportsmen, while individual tweeters showered sarcasm on India’s readiness. ‘Cyclingweekly’ magazine service tweeted: Peter Kennaugh and Geraint Thomas have withdrawn from the Isle of Man and Welsh teams for the Commonwealth Games.

‘Djmaxwell’ from Britain said: “Commonwealth games athletes village...I feel sick. Team GB, don’t go!” “Doctor_Hutch from Australia said: “Commonwealth Games kit just arrived. They forgot the chest waders and the biohazard suit.”
Not only on microblogging sites like Twitter, the callous attitude of the Commonwealth Games organising authorities, is also being lambasted by social networkers on Facebook.

Users in India have created forums and groups lambasting the slackness of the organising committee. One of these groups is called Jhel (bear) The Commonwealth Games. The group with over 2000 members has designed its own logo and distributing black bands to protest against the corruption in the Games.

However, there are other groups as well upbeat about the games. Youth volunteers who are likely to help in the organising of the games, are upbeat on this Facebook Group Commonwealth Games XIX, and post regular updates and coordinate for sporty event, despite the media criticism.