Shooters worried about safety in Delhi

They may carry guns, but even Australia's shooters are concerned about their personal safety at the Delhi Commonwealth Games.

Olympic gold medallists Michael Diamond and Susie Balogh are among more than a hundred clay target shooters currently competing in Brisbane for selection at the October Games.

Diamond said, while his goal is to shoot for Australia, fears about his safety in India are in the back of his mind.

"Our safety in New Delhi is definitely a concern," he said.

"As long as Australia is sending a team, we have to trust that security is being taken care of, but that worry will always be in the back of our minds."

Australian Commonwealth Games Association chief executive Perry Crosswhite said last week it would be up to athletes to decide whether they will attend, but the risk was manageable.

The Commonwealth Games Federation has dismissed recent comments expressing concern about security as "ill informed".

Commonwealth Games bring more pollution to Delhi

The terrible air quality in the Indian capital has just become even worse due to construction work for the Commonwealth Games, figures from the Central Pollution Control Board show.

The board’s member-secretary, SD Makhijani, said massive building work for October’s Games and the subsequent traffic congestion are to blame for a large increase in nitrogen oxides and particulate matter in the air in New Delhi.

“At this stage the air quality is not so good,” Mr Makhijani said. “There are so many construction projects going on and so much congestion.”

There is some positive news, however. While nitrogen oxides and particulate matter are getting worse, Delhi’s painful decision to switch all commercial vehicles onto natural gas fuel from diesel has kept the most toxic sulphur dioxides and carbon monoxides within acceptable limits.

“These are not a problem. Sulphur dioxides especially are well within standards,” Mr Makhijani said.

With 1,000 extra cars hitting the roads each working day, one third of them diesel, nitrogen oxides are soaring – as is particulate matter, or fine ingestible dust, according to the pollution board.

Respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) is a major health hazard, especially for children, and doctors are now warning that poor air quality could compromise the performance of contenders at the Commonwealth Games in October.

“It is definitely going to affect their performance, because pollution has a bad effect on all parameters for vital capacity,” said Dr AK Sood at Rockland Hospital in the city.

“Respiratory capacity for any athlete is extremely important, so it is bound to affect them.”

RSPM levels have always been higher in Delhi than other Commonwealth countries, but they remained within World Bank limits until last autumn. In October, the levels suddenly tripled, and they have yet to drop.

The same is true for nitrogen oxides; levels climbed above safe limits in October, and they remain high.

Mr Makhijani said a mammoth US$17.5 billion (Dh64.3bn) construction programme of flyovers, new Metro lines, stadiums and bus lanes in preparation for the Games has thrown clouds of dust up into the air while causing congestion that prevents exhaust from dispersing.

Winter fog then settled and trapped the foul air, which is why levels of pollution have yet to drop, he said.

As the weather warms up and the Commonwealth Games construction ends, Mr Makhijani hopes that levels will fall. “We hope that when the construction is completed, air quality will return back to 2008 levels,” he said.

In 2008 the pollution board recorded a better year as it reaped the benefits of a difficult decision to switch all commercial vehicles to natural gas.

The results were staggering. Within 12 months, sulphur dioxide levels dropped by three-quarters, and carbon monoxide levels plunged.

Delhi has won international acclaim for the move, which was prompted by a 2005 health study revealing that foul air had impaired lung function in nearly half of all Delhi children.

Delhi youngsters were also twice as likely as children in other Indian cities to suffer from respiratory disease, and they had three times the alveolar macrophages, or narrowing of the air passages – something that is directly linked to RSPM.

Children are especially vulnerable to poor air quality because their immune systems are not fully developed and they tend to spend more time than adults outdoors. They also breathe more deeply relative to body mass.

Although no comparable study has been done since 2005, Dr Sood at Rocklands Hospital said anecdotal evidence suggested that respiratory disease among children had started to improve, until the past few months.

Some are calling for an immediate increase in air quality standards as well as a reduction in the number of cars on the road.

“We have crossed the point this year where we can say Delhi is clean,” said Anumita Roychoudhary, from the Centre of Science and Environment. But the board is going to wait to see if levels drop towards the end of the year. If they do not, further action will be taken, said Mr Makhijani, who cited public transit as a core strategy to improve the city’s air quality.

“We need to ensure the smooth flow of traffic and decrease the number of vehicles, which is only possible if people switch to public transport,” he said.

Delhi has invested heavily in public transit, but it is also expanding and improving the city’s network of ring roads.

Mr Makhijani said if commuters driving into Delhi from outside the city refuse to save an hour by leaving the car at home, the pollution control board will tax them.

Govt steps in to save illegal structures

The government has decided to bring an ordinance to regularise illegal or disputed structures and constructions around monuments to clear legal hurdles in the way of several infrastructure projects linked to the Commonwealth Games here in October.

The 'Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment & Validation) Ordinance, 2010' was cleared by the Union Cabinet and is being sent to President Pratibha Patil

for approval, a government official said.

The government's move comes in the wake of the Delhi High Court declaring 171 permissions granted by Archaeological Survey of India "invalid" and directed the government and the ASI to initiate steps to remove the violations.

The ASI issued show-cause notices to civic agencies in connection with construction activities at and around 92 protected structures like Red Fort, Hauz Khas, Humayun's Tomb and Siri Fort.

Among those affected by the decision were the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and the Commonwealth Games Committee over structures constructed within prohibited areas of centrally protected monuments.

The Delhi High Court had set January 29 as the deadline for the government to respond to a decision relating to protection of monuments.

MCD gets to clean parts of ring roads for a year

The Public Works Department may have made a big din about mechanised cleaners for Ring Road and Outer Ring Road, but with Commonwealth Games 2010 barely a few months away, it seems to be getting cold feet over cleaning the peripheral roads that have turned more into arterial routes for traffic.

The Delhi government has decided to hand back about 80 km on Ring Road and Outer Ring Road to the MCD for upkeep of sanitation for a year.

The move is being described as conservative with the government not wanting to face embarrassment over sanitation.

The stretches — 50 km on Outer Ring Road and 30 km on Ring Road — was taken away from MCD for shoddy cleaning and handed over to the PWD after an inspection by the CM.

This included stretches adjoining central Delhi such as the one outside Rajghat that also leads to the Delhi Secretariat building.

The interesting bit is that the PWD that had floated tenders for mechanised cleaning and even chosen a firm was not backtracking on its claim.

"PWD was sweeping 80 km of the total 400 km of road it maintains as MCD was not able to ensure proper sanitation. But there are problems like drains overflowing that PWD is not equipped to handle. MCD is also keen to do this job and if they do well, they can carry on," said a senior government official who had attended the meeting in which the handover decision was taken on Thursday evening.

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Delhi PWD Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan, senior officials from MCD and the PWD and UD departments attended the meeting.

"There was talk of mechanised cleaners but if machines break down, PWD does not have people to clean manually. We can't have any problems on Ring Road. With Games coming up, we are taking a conservative approach. This is not the time for experiments. Even if MCD can't keep entire Delhi clean, they will definitely ensure that these stretches are clean," the official added.

The cleaning of the Ring Road and Outer Ring Road will cost MCD another Rs 4.87 crore for which the government will make an additional allocation.

MCD needs no extra funds, but utilise alloction: Congress

Opposition Congress councillors in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Thursday alleged that the civic agency required no additional funding for Commonwealth Games related projects and should instead utilise existing funds.

These funds are proposed to be given to various committee heads in this year’s budget, in contradiction of the Municipal Act, Leader of Opposition in MCD house Jai Kishan Sharma and Kalkaji area councillor Khavinder Singh Captain told reporters. They alleged that the civic agency was not utilising funds properly.

‘In this year’s budget proposal, the standing committee has asked for discretionary funds for the leader of the house and opposition, as well as committees on gardening, health, education, sanitation and works. These are in absolute contradiction of section 105 of the Delhi Municipal Act. The law only allows discretionary funds for the municipal commissioner, ward committee heads and standing committee heads,’ Sharma said.

Maintaining that the opposition needed no discretionary funds, Sharma and Captain also alleged that the civic corporation was not using budget allocations for public welfare. ‘MCD doesn’t need more funds from Delhi government… we need to utilise what we have.’

‘Instead of using the funds on public, many MCD heads are pocketing the money themselves. Their tea parties cost Rs.200,000. If funds are allocated like this, the corporation will have to be shut down,’ Sharma claimed.

Weight lifter Shailaja Pujari banned for life

Seeing her past history, it was a given that Shailaja Pujari would be handed a life-ban by the International Weightlifting Federation.

The repeat offender, who has competed over the years in the 75 kg category, was punished for failing the most recent out-of-competition dope tests carried out by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) and World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) in September last year.

At a time when the world body is waiting to announce the verdict on the Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) as several others too tested positive around the same time, the news certainly does not augur well with the Commonwealth Games only nine months away.

Though federation officials are confident of evading a ban that can come with the string of cases, the fact that five other weightlifters were given four-year bans, is shameful and gives an idea of the rampant doping in the system that can prove to be an embarrassment again.

“Shailaja is the only one given a life ban. The five others have been handed four-year bans,” confirmed the IWF secretary-general Sahadev Yadav, who took over the important post only recently.

“But we are hoping to get away with a fine. I am quite sure this will not have a bearing on our chances in theCommonwealth Games,” he added.

Pujari, a 75kg gold medallist from the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, had first tested positive at the junior nationals in Chennai in 2003 and once again just before the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, following which she was dropped from the Indian squad.

Vicky Batta, a 56kg silver winner in the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games who had previously failed a drug test during the 2007 National Games, was lucky not to get a harsher ban despite also being a repeat offender.

Batta and four others — Harbhajan Singh , Rajesh Singh, Sunita Rani and A Vijayadevi — were banned for four years and fined $ 5,000 each for failing the out-of-competition tests last year.

The IWF, which has been banned twice in the past (2004 and 2006), had earlier withdrawn its contingent from the World Championships in South Korea last year fearing a ban because of the repeat offences.

The whole set of office-bearers subsequently resigned from the IWF posts, and it further took some harsh words from the sports ministry to finally get rid of tainted officials Harbhajan Singh and Baldev Raj Gulati, who had made their way back in.

Harbhajan and Gulati, who were president and secretary, respectively during the forgettable phase for Indian weightlifting, returned as life president and vice-president after the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) forced the en masse resignations. But the duo had to make way after the government’s tough stance.

The world body is expected to decide on the verdict against the IWF in the coming days.

Three-bedroom flat at Games village for Rs.2.6 crore

Want to live in the state-of-the-art Commonwealth Games Village once the sporting extravaganza is over? You'll have to shell out a whopping Rs.2.6 crore ($565,000) for a three-bedroom flat!

"We have already sold out two-bedroom flats. They were priced at Rs.2 crore. The basic price of a three-bedroom flat is Rs.2.6 crore," an official of Games village builder Emaar-MGF told IANS.

Located on the banks of the Yamuna river, the Commonwealth Games Village has 1,168 apartments spread over 34 towers on 27 acres of land.

The cost of a four-bedroom flat in this east Delhi location is Rs.3.5 crore, while a five-bedroom flat costs Rs.4.5 crore.

The three-bedroom flats have been built on an area of around 2,000 sq.ft., four-bedroom flats on 2,500 sq.ft. and the five-bedroom flats on approximately 3,000 sq. ft.

The village will host over 7,000 athletes during the Oct 3-14 Commonwealth Games. The flats will be handed over to purchasers six months after the conclusion of the mega sporting event.