Beijing Olympics

Thanks a lot sir.. I couldn't reply for all these days because I had problem operating my account at Sulekha.. Now its all sorted so I am back.. Please do read a series of posts that I will start in a couple of days about the story of my adventurous life.. Thanks..

Thank you very much for your humane comment, Tripatk. I agree with your comment - it is indeed further evidence that Indians should feel proud that they wasted only enough money to get ONE Gold Medal.

Thus of the 16 million people who die avoidably every year in the world (2005 population 6.6 billion) due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease, 3.7 million died in India (2005 population 1.1 billion);  of the 10.7 million under-5 year old infants who die each year on Spaceship Earth with the First World in charge of the flight deck, 2.3 million die in India (2003 data; see: “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/  and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/  ).

However just think how much WORSE this deprivation-caused carnage would be if India (population 1,1 00 million; 1 Gold Medal) had devoted huge resources to winning its “fair share” of the 302 Gold medals available in a World with a population of 6.6 billion (300 Gold medals x 1.1 billion/ 6.6 billion = 50 Gold Medals (roughly what China achieved [51 Gold medals] with a population of 1.3 billion and a total investment (including Beijing infrastructure) of $42 billion).

Prosperous and sports-mad Australia is reported to have spent $100 million of State and Federal tax money on getting each of its 14 Gold Medals (see: http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/bnm/20080824/tts-australia-olympics-993ba14.html ) - if India had done this to get its “fair share” of Gold medals it would have spent $5 billion.

Consulting the World Health Organization (WHO: http://www.who.int/en/ ) we find that the “total annual per capita health expenditure” in India is $100 per person per year (roughly 2 General Practitioner medical consultations in Australia) and corresponding to  roughly $110 billion (5% of GDP) in total – how obscene if the Indian Government had decided to take about 5% off its already parlous health expenditure that is associated with 3.7 million avoidable deaths annually, 10,134 avoidable deaths per day or 162,191 avoidable deaths over the 16 days of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Seen in the light of the above analysis, India’s investment to secure just 1 (ONE) Gold Medal seems an expensive indulgence – and accordingly Indians should feel PROUD that India only secured 1 Gold Medal (and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis even more so since they have similar demographics and similar proportional avoidable mortality and secured NO Medals of any description) (see “Olympic Medal Tally Analyzed. No Gold medals for War, Occupation & Genocide” : http://mwcnews.net/content/view/24830/42/ ) .