now, they say that india team had bird flu....

Discussion in 'Thomas / Uber Cup Prelim 2008' started by george@chongwei, Feb 11, 2008.

  1. george@chongwei

    george@chongwei Regular Member

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    [​IMG]Bird flu is the reason why the 30 best Indian shuttlers including women’s singles representative Saina Newhal (world number 29) and her male counterpart Anup Sridhar (world number 27) are suddenly left with unexpected free time on their hands just 12 days before the Thomas and Uber Cup qualification rounds to be held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

    By Aaron Wong, with Agencies. Pix : Badmintonphoto (archives)

    India’s top shuttlers had gathered for a preparatory national camp starting today in Goa and Chandigarh only to be told by the Badminton Association of India (BAI) that it had been a cancelled owing to a shortage of shuttlecocks.


    Bird flu incidents in China have led to an Indian government ban on the importing of premium goose feathers to manufacture shuttlecocks. Indian shuttles were dismissed as a substitute because of their inferior quality for top level sparring as well as insufficient quantities being available from the markets at such short notice.

    “Not our fault”

    The blame game has begun. The BAI rely on the Sports Authority of India (SAI) to either supply stocks of shuttles or approve the BAI to source them first.

    "We told (SAI) that we can import the shuttles at our own cost," V.K. Verma, the chairman of the BAI said, "and they can reimburse us later. But they told us we will also need the clearance. The proposal has been lying with them for the last 6 months,” VK Verma was quoted as saying by NDTV.com
    The Sports Ministry are, in turn, at the mercy of the Union Agriculture Ministry’s import restrictions from China, too. Private enterprise efforts fared no better.

    [​IMG]"We haven't been able to import shuttles for four months," said Vikram Dhar, the country manager for Yonex Sunrise India, who are the local manufacturers of international standard shuttles. "We are even willing to give an undertaking that the feathers are not affected by the virus but to no effect," he said in the local Hindustan Times.

    Another option was to bring in chemically-treated shuttles that had passed bird flu inspections by Hong Kong authorities, but the ban extended to these too.

    The shuttle predicament has already affected the readiness of India’s shuttlers for the Thomas and Uber Cups. It also threatens plans for the Indian Open badminton tournament to be played in April, in the city of Hyderabad.

    Disapointed yet Optimistic

    Chief national coach and former All England champion Pullela Gopichand (photo) is optimistic about new dates for the national camp, which also serves as practice towards the biggest tournament of all, the Olympics.

    Gopichand knows it has been extremely hard in the last year to forge solidarity amongst national shuttlers and this episode comes at a bad time before India gets ready to fight under the team banner.
     
  2. shanisen3200

    shanisen3200 Regular Member

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    :eek::eek::eek:
    may be later the head line on newspaper will be shown:
    "Badminton players got the bird flu H5M1,2
    no way to be cure"
    :eek::eek::eek:
     
  3. taneepak

    taneepak Regular Member

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    This is how Indian bureaucracy works, or it used to be the case when I dealt with one of their ministries on some business many years. What India needs is to get rid of their caste system and empower everyone to go on their own and not be so subservient to authorities. If it is against a silly law that doesn't make sense, just do it. Importing shuttles on your own is no crime against humanity and is of tremenduous benefit to Indian players fighting for international honours. Just do it and let us see what happens.:cool:
     
  4. hcyong

    hcyong Regular Member

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    Well, this is not as bad as killing every single bird in the village or town or whatever, just because there is a suspicion of bird flu. It's a crime against ... uhhh ... avianity.
     

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