Sunfeast Marathon 1OK Bangalore 2010

It was a lovely morning on 23rd May 2010, the day of the Sunfeast Marathon 2010. There was furious activity around the stadium right from 6am in the morning. The races were scheduled to start from 06:30am in the morning.

All kinds of people participated in the races - Professional runners, people with disabilities, corporates, representatives from various NGOs, general public participating in the 10K and the Majja Run(5.7Km). In the Majja Run, there was also a competition for best dressed runners. A lot of people turned up in interesting costumes, most of them with a message. Messages included support for Cancer, Alzheimer type of diseases to other initiatives like ‘Go Green’ and give way to ambulance etc. Finally it was Enable India, an NGO for enabling people with disabilities, that walked away with the top honors for best costume/theme.

Did you know -
Sunfeast World 10K Bangalore is an IAAF Gold Label Road Race event. It is one of only three 10K races in the world which have been give the Gold Label status by IAAF.

A few interesting moments captured shown below -

Practice run for Professional runners

marathon2010 practice run for professional runners

10K Race kick-off for general public

marathon2010 general public 10K race kick off

Interesting costumes by different participants

marathon2010 interesting costumes

marathon2010 interesting costumes 2

NGO Enable India team

The team won the best costume award at the races.

marathon2010 Enable India full team celebrating

And the winners are -

10K (Men)

1. Titus Mbieshei (Kenya) 27:54
2. Moses Kipsiro (Uganda) 28:08
3. Feyisa Lelisa (Kenya) 28:23
4. Deriba Merga (Ethiopia) 28:32
5. Edwin Kipkorir (Kenya) 28:35

10K (Women)
1. Yimer Wude of Ethiopia 31:58
2. Aselefech Mergia of Ethiopia 32:00
3. Grace Momanyi (Kenya) 32:05
4. Koren Yal (Ethiopia) 32:17
5. Aberu Kebede (Ethiopia) 32:21

Sunil Kumar and Preethi Rao won the top honors for men & womens category for India.

Racial attacks in Australia; Enough is enough.

The consistency with which attacks are happening in Australia against Indians and Indian symbols is very alarming. It started with a few racial attacks; a lot of noise being made in the media; things die down a bit; and in the last few days the attacks have resumed and with renewed vigor. More people attacked, and the list now includes religious places also. There was a gurudwara that was set on fire today.

Where is all this headed to? Will we continue to see S.M.Krishna condemning the attacks, Australian government saying there is no proof to indicate the attacks were racially motivated; while the attacks keep happening?

The BJP government is right in demanding PM’s personal intervention in this issue. We have given sufficient time for the Australian government to act and control these attacks. And Bal Thackeray’s statement that Indians should not play Australians in cricket seems right. How can we play with a country where our brothers are being attacked; our religious places targeted? We similarly need to step up the protests in various different ways.

Enough is enough. We need to make more noise and take concrete steps instead of just making diplomatic statements.

Mayawati spends 1000 crores on her statue

Atrocious, Disgusting, Ridiculous, Obnoxious…I dont know what other words to use after I got to know from a News telecast on TV about Mayawati spending 1000 crore rupees of tax payer’s money…
http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/statue_issue_chidambaram_takes_on_mayawati.php
Yes, thats a full one thousand crore rupees on just making her statues. I cant even start to imagine how such humongous amount of money can be spent by a people’s representative. Is this arrogance or heights of shamelessness?

There are so many basic facilities that can be given to the poor people of India who cant even afford 3 meals a day. And providing these facilities would not even cost more than a few crore rupees. And here we are spending hundreds & hundreds of crores on self-gratification.

After hearing all this, I am reminded of K.Kamaraj who was called a King maker in Congress. He was an epitome of honesty & integrity. He had made sure that he or his family members do not receive any type of gifts lest it puts him under obligation for giving favors. He was the one who said all senior leaders in the party should resign and devote time to organization building to send out a message to people that their leaders do not have the lure for power. And the best part - he turned down prime minister’s post when Lal Bahadur Shastri died indicating that the country needed a more well educated Leader to represent our country in the world arena. A thousand salute to this great leader!

Its such a sad state of affairs and this country has seen leaders on two opposite sides of the spectrum. I am angry, frustrated…but then we are the ones who elect such people. We need good people to come into politics and we need to encourage and support such people.

Take a look at this related post -

http://golumolu.in/blogwp/2009/03/good-people-entering-politics/

State of Indian politics, Congress is the party for the future

The political scenario, post general elections 2009, in India has taken a very interesting twist.

Sometime back it appeared like there is “tough competition” between Congress & BJP during the elections 2009; but subsequently it was a comprehensive victory for the Congress. A lot of things have changed since then. The BJP did not even give an impression of carrying out a proper postmortem and lessons learnt from the debacle. Instead the infighting within the party has just come out more in the open. This party needs a good leader; and unfortunately this has been a problem since Vajpayeeji retired from active politics. At this rate, instead of the second largest party, BJP is likely to become yet another party like CPI or DMK and so on. These are small parties who can be termed as party spoilers than someone who can create a significant impact or forming a government on their own. And the Third Front crashed even before it could take off.

On the other hand, take the Congress Party. They have exceeded people’s expectations. The strategy of gaining Uttar Pradesh was so well planned and executed. Superb! They got the best leaders at the helm - Sonia & Manmohan Singh. And Rahul is showing the right signs of becoming one of the influential and iconic leaders in the future. Congress ministers look more well-versed in their domains and look more capable than the counter parts in other parties. Congress shows clear signs of accountability, performance and the best thing is that they are bringing in youth into the mainstream. BJP is a big loser on this front.

Given the current trends, Congress party is the party for the future. It will be a while before any of the parties are even able to come close to them. The only thing is that Congress should not allow the victory to get into their head and end up doing something stupid; I guess the party is mature enough to manage that. I would even go one step further and say that they will get a clear majority during the next elections, and wouldnt need support from the smaller parties. They wouldnt need to handle messy situations like appeasing DMK and so on for portfolio assignment.

Way to go, Congress!

Jai Ho! Gandhigiri by Vijay Mallya

Vijay Mallya brought home Bapu’s memorablia.

There are some people who make a difference in their own way without making too much noise about it. Bapu’s items going on auction was a much publicized thing by the media. Hats off to Mallya! He pays money from his own pocket (1.8 million $) to get Bapu’s items and will then hand it over to the Government. Well, there are thousands of Indian industrialists/businessmen who are on the top of list of richest men in the world. But there is only one who has taken a step like this. This shows a lot of things about Mallya – his patriotism, his pride in the heritage of India, generosity and quick decision making as he had to act before someone else would buy these precious ones.

Jai ho! Vijay Mallya. You have seized an opportunity to show patriotism in your own way. And for the second time around.

Attack on Sri Lanka team in Pakistan. Is anyone surprised?

I am not at all surprised that an attack has happened on the Sri Lanka cricket team in Pakistan. Looks like everyone unfortunately has been in a denial mode when it comes to Sports teams getting attacked by terrorists. What better way to grab headlines for the extremists?

If it were not to be for the Bus driver’s presence of mind, God Forbid; we may have had a much worse situation as opposed to a few injuries that the cricketers suffered. It would have been a catastrophe with far reaching repercussions that would have shaken the world.

Anyway, here are some videos of what happened out there -

Video showing the terrorists
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