AITA News .....

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sameerph
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by sameerph »

I think he will operate from behind the scenes now and appoint some lame duck as president. I am not sure of the election process for the AITA president but I guess it will be state organisations who will be allowed to vote. AK will have put all his cronies out there at most of the places ( except TNTA where Karti Chidambaram is there) which will make it very difficult for anyone from opposing camp to get elected.

Our sportsmen will find it very difficult to get to be the head of sports federations unless we change the method of selection. In the current system, they will find it very difficult to compete with politicians or businessmen who are as good politicians at mechanisations like AK.
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by VReddy »

sameerph wrote:I think he will operate from behind the scenes now and appoint some lame duck as president. I am not sure of the election process for the AITA president but I guess it will be state organisations who will be allowed to vote. AK will have put all his cronies out there at most of the places ( except TNTA where Karti Chidambaram is there) which will make it very difficult for anyone from opposing camp to get elected.

Our sportsmen will find it very difficult to get to be the head of sports federations unless we change the method of selection. In the current system, they will find it very difficult to compete with politicians or businessmen who are as good politicians at mechanisations like AK.
Do we know how many state associations are affiliated to AITA? There is absolutely no info online from what I searched. I think TNTA would probably have Karnataka / Telangana under control given Bhupathi's presence in Bangalore and I think KTR (Telangana IT Min/TSTA incharge) appears closer to Bhupathi based on Twitter updates.

Would be interesting to see how the election pans out
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by jayakris »

sameerph wrote:Our sportsmen will find it very difficult to get to be the head of sports federations unless we change the method of selection. In the current system, they will find it very difficult to compete with politicians or businessmen who are as good politicians...
Or career bureaucrats, for that matter. I found this youtube video quite interesting. This is our current tennis supremo, Mrs. Praveen Mahajan, some three yeras ago, speaking at an NDTV panel on service tax amnesty, and also about GST. Man, talk about a hard core bureaucrat! That is the largest pile of files I have ever seen anybody bringing to a TV panel!!! Haha :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjE_pKQpyS4

But to be frank, I find the lady quite nice and knowledgeable. Looks like an honest bureaucrat. Perhaps everybody felt that she would be harmless as interim (or whatever) president of AITA and voted her in. The general secretary runs the business, and that I have to expect will be following Anil Khanna's orders (whether he is in AITA board or not), as the father Khanna and the son Khanna have run AITA as sort of a family property for some 2 decades... Unless something has changed recently, that is.
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by sameerph »

Yes, she looks to be a knowledgeable lady. But, as a bureaucrat she would be accustomed to only advice the right course to the ministers who would be the final decision making authority. I guess the same thing will work here and AK will call the shots.

It will be interesting to see what happens in what is supposed to be elections for a new chief on 31st March.
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by Rajiv »

VReddy wrote:Just before the interim president was selected, Anil Khanna was made the Hon. Life President. So now he will forever be involved :p
It all depends on how much power and influence an Hon President can yield and hope it will not be a Laloo Prasad -Rabri Devi scenario
Traditionally this position comes with none of the duties and responsibilities as that of a working President , and if that is the case we will be happy to have him as "Margdarshak" :D But that is a big if.
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by Rajiv »

jayakris wrote: as the father Khanna and the son Khanna have run AITA as sort of a family property for some 2 decades... Unless something has changed recently, that is.

Correction , it is for over 5 decades the Father and Son have ruled over AITA as their personal fiefdom , Barring couple of terms , Khanna senior has been the secretary since 1966 and this father and son duo strongly resemble North Korean's Supreme Leader and Dear Leader in their tough authoritarian non productive ways.
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Post by Ram »

There is a parallel circuit happening in Veterans circuit for many years. http://www.aistatennis.com/index.php
All the oldies in my club have great fun participating in these tournaments fully sponsored by Andhra based businessmen. The tournaments, i believe, is run very professionally, well thought out events and almost completely sponsored. AITA debars anyone who play in this circuit from participating in their tournaments. Understand the choice is very simple for these fun loving and passionate tennis oldies :-)
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by jayakris »

Rajiv wrote:Correction , it is for over 5 decades the Father and Son have ruled over AITA as their personal fiefdom , Barring couple of terms , Khanna senior has been the secretary since 1966 and this father and son duo strongly resemble North Korean's Supreme Leader and Dear Leader in their tough authoritarian non productive ways.
Of course. I was generally thinking of Anil Khanna's time, since when he got seriously into running it... Maybe 20-25 years. The father khanna was there for ages before that! Yeah, the north Korea analgy isn't too bad. Nobody has been able to break the Khanna family hold on AITA. Who was it, Ramesh Desai (?) or somebody, who tried to break them last - around twenty years go? ... Nobody even tries anymore, I think :)
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by prasen9 »

I know you guys don't like me to make this thread "asuddha" by mentioning cricket. But, maybe, the Supreme Court can be coaxed to get involved in a broad PIL against all the sports federations (boxing, hockey, tennis, etc.) and revamp them on the Lodha Commission guidelines? Some of them are actually pretty good. For starters, no politicians allowed ... term limits of two consecutive and one more ... no 70+ year olds ... etc. Ideally, the government should do it, but, all our governments have been total nincompoops wrt reforming our sports bodies and this one is not much different either. So, we have to hope the Supreme Court does it, a la its actions on environmental protection, Lodha, etc.
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Post by Atithee »

For that, they need to start with themselves. No MP, MLA, JUDGES etc over 70 and two term limits. And, most of these folks are government officials too. Fair?
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by Rajiv »

jayakris wrote: Who was it, Ramesh Desai (?) or somebody, who tried to break them last - around twenty years go? ...
Ramesh Desai of MSLTA was a Khanna crony , it was Vijay Amirtiraj / PL Reddy combine which held sway from 82 to 87 and how well they performed , each year World Group in Davis Cup was guaranteed culmination in the 87 finals ,
and 88 onwards the first thing Sr Khanna did was come hard and with full force mercilessly sacked Vijay and Anand from the team paying scant respect to 4-5 years of World Group contribution

Been checking some details and AITA already has 2 Honourary Life Presidents in S M Krishna & Yashwant Sinha , Now how will the third person AK fit in , and what exact role will these 3 wise men perform.
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by prasen9 »

Atithee wrote:For that, they need to start with themselves. No MP, MLA, JUDGES etc over 70 and two term limits. And, most of these folks are government officials too. Fair?
That is fine with me, but, in reality that will not happen. Cleaning up the BCCI is happening. So, there is hope that someone will take that blueprint to clean up the tennis, boxing, or hockey associations ... If you find a way to get age and term limits for politicians and judges, I would be glad.

I do not think this is there anywhere in the world. But, one crazy idea is as follows. If your (or your family's) wealth goes up by more than some % say 50% from the point you took office, you have to quit. Basically, I want to limit accumulation of wealth while serving in office.
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by sameerph »

prasen9 wrote:all our governments have been total nincompoops wrt reforming our sports bodies and this one is not much different either.
The action to remove Khanna from AITA was initiated by sports ministry.

This is an old article but gives some details of what government threatened to do -

I have no desire to continue as AITA president: Anil Khanna
Khanna was elected as AITA president for a four-year term (2012-2016) after serving as AITA Secretary General for two consecutive terms.

The Sports Code requires a cooling off period of four years if an office-bearer seeks re-election after serving two consecutive terms.
Khanna, who has been under pressure to step down after the Sports Ministry threatened to derecognize AITA by firing a fresh notice on Tuesday, has already offered to relinquish office at the next Annual General Meeting of the association.
Of course, Khanna paints himself as if he is only working in the interest of Indian tennis and he is the only one who can do that.
“Look, the Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) will be much stronger now. I have already visited Kazakhstan and Kuwait to discuss how their tennis can go forward and I have been invited by Tajikistan, Sri Lanka to discuss development plans for tennis but in my own country I am yet to get a congratulatory letter from any government official,” Khanna lamented.

Khanna being Head of ITF (Development) holds a lot clout and can get a lot of funding to help Indian tennis.

“I have no personal interest and I only want to help Indian tennis,” he said.
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by prasen9 »

Thanks Sameer. I dug up a little bit. I think the Sports Code was passed in 2011 but could not be implemented because it was appealed in court. Delhi high court asked for enforcement in 2014. It's great that the government used the Sports Code finally. Kudos! Whatever their logic was to target only tennis, I would be glad if they use it to clean up the other federations. The Sports Minister at least publicly said that they will implement the code. Good!
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Re: AITA News .....

Post by jayakris »

Rajiv wrote:
jayakris wrote: Who was it, Ramesh Desai (?) or somebody, who tried to break them last - around twenty years go? ...
Ramesh Desai of MSLTA was a Khanna crony , it was Vijay Amirtiraj / PL Reddy combine which held sway from 82 to 87 and how well they performed , each year World Group in Davis Cup was guaranteed culmination in the 87 finals ,
and 88 onwards the first thing Sr Khanna did was come hard and with full force mercilessly sacked Vijay and Anand from the team paying scant respect to 4-5 years of World Group contribution
Yes! That was the name. PL Reddy. I was racking my brain for a few minutes. That went on till around 1998, fizzling out over the last few years. I remember PL Reddy and some of our players complaining in those years about tournaments not being sanctioned and the calendar being a mess. Then it went away, and hardly anybody has raised a serious voice since then. Have to give it to the Khannas though. They are much better politicians than many others in Indian sports. They have always had a way of simply going quiet and not get into the news when they are criticized. Quite unlike KPS Gill, Narinder Batra, etc. No open fight in the press, nary a serious or harsh word directly said about anybody etc... People who try to fight the Khannas usually end up tackling air, and they give up!! It's been spectacularly funny to see.
Been checking some details and AITA already has 2 Honorary Life Presidents in S M Krishna & Yashwant Sinha , Now how will the third person AK fit in , and what exact role will these 3 wise men perform.
Yes, those two are Hon. presidents... They never interfere in anything, so it was easy to place them there. I think the idea of Honorary lifetime presidents was thought up, just so those non-interfering gentlemen would set the stage for a later act, that in fact just occurred. The third one can now say that he too will be innocuous like them and people will believe it. But interfere and control it, he indeed will. All that's needed is a nice and honorable person as the elected president now, and nobody gets to fight anybody, going further too. Somebody like Smt. Mahajan fits the bill perfectly. The control stays with you know who. Everybody goes home happy, and we are set for the next 2 decades!
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