Police refuse to hold two C'wealth events

The police has rejected the proposals to hold Lawn Bowls at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and the Archery final in the India Gate lawns, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Aug 7, 2007, 01:53:07 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Even as a Group of Ministers on Monday failed to resolve the controversial link between the Commonwealth Games Village and Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, the Delhi Police voiced its own grouses on two major events.

The police has rejected the proposals of the Suresh Kalmadi-headed organising committee to hold Lawn Bowls at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and the Archery final in the India Gate lawns.

In case of Lawn Bowls, the police argument was that the holding area and circulation space for spectators and pedestrians is not enough. Then Delhi Police chief K.K. Paul had said evacuation in case of an emergency at the stadium would be difficult, and an alternative venue was thus needed .

The GoM then asked Home Minister Shivraj Patil to intervene and resolve the issue.

On the Archery final in the C-Hexagon lawns of India Gate, the GoM sought the opinion of a panel of the urban development ministry. The Delhi Police has expressed reservations on holding archery finals in the India Gate area, citing VIP traffic movement in the area and hockey matches at the National Stadium.

However, the GoM felt that these issues could be resolved by the approval of the ministry panel. The preliminary rounds of archery would now be organized at cricket stadium of the Yamuna Sports Complex after Delhi University refused to organize the event. The GoM also approved Rs 661 crore for preparing the Indian team for the Games. Training avenues will come up nationwide where upcoming talent and established players would trained together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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