This government get puzzled with each passing day. I am listing the top blunders made by this govt.
1) DEMONETIZATION: The main aim of this horrendous decision was to remove the black money from the economy. How stupid one can be. Black money is not a static problem. Its a continuous process by which people avoid the taxes and store their money in terms of cash, gold, and many other forms of property. You can't remove the problem of black money in one shot. For that we have to simplify the tax system, lower the tax rate and give discount on timely paid taxes. And more than that we need to implement strong laws and made a robust income tax department. Instead Modi did this blunder. And as result more than 100 innocent people lost their lives, millions of people lost their job temporarily, and countless people suffer in one and other way. Unlike Manmohan Singh, Modi never apologies for his misdeeds.
2)GST : Modi himself protest against GST, when UPA govt try to implement GST at their tenure. So I know most of the people know about GST. It is called Goods and service tax, the main purpose of GST to simply the tax system and removing the cascading effect from the market. So what is cascading effect, in a simple way, we can say that when we give multiple tax on a single item, and the tax is compounded each time is called cascading effect, But this govt doesn't know what the GST stands for, they have set 4 tax slabs for different items, and few things kept outside of GST, like Petrol, Disel, Liquor..etc. So it is not simple in nature and not fulfilling the first condition. Not a single country in this world who implemented GST have more than one tax slab, so you can't called it GST. Second problem is without much preparation they implemented it as quickly as possible just to get some political mileage. And as a result GDP growth further slow down after Demonetization.
3)EXTREME HINDUISM: First of all Hindu is a philosophy is not a religion. Hindu is a philosophy of acceptance, peace and tolerance. But this saffron brigade want to rewrite the Hindu philosophy. A philosophy of hate, intolerance, and Hindu Muslim division.God save this people. One thing I want to say that, "India is a diverse country, it has multiple number of language, multiple type of physical attributes as well as multiple type of culture and believe, never try to monopolize it, Diversity is our uniqueness try to respect it." But who will teach them, their brain placed at their knee. They will never understand.
4)EXTREME PATRIOTISM: First of all, those who killed Gandhi Ji can never be patriotic. Neither they took part in freedom movement nor they respect the tri-color after independence. How they can teach us a true patriotism. By their definition we all are anti- national one and other way. Even Virat Kohli is anti national because be married outside India. I have read an editorial about Extreme patriotism published on Indian express which was beautifully depicted, why extreme patriotism not good for a nation. I can't recalled it. So what the Extreme Patriotism can do, I just quote it from a source.
" Patriotism is defined as devoted love, support and defense of one’s country; national loyalty. Nationalism, on the other hand, to quote Albert Einstein, “is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” Nationalism is an extreme form of patriotism, often related to a feeling of superiority over other country.many citizens’ expression of patriotism is beginning to bleed into nationalism, which should be concerning for humans as a whole.
Nationalism leads people to think in a combative “us-against-them” mindset, as well as cultivating a sense of superiority that is damaging to our global relationships. It also tends to replace actual thoughtful analysis and critical inquiry with blind justifications in order to feel good about ourselves and our country.
My final issue with extreme patriotism comes when it replaces actual critical thought about what our country is doing.
Right now the new drama has started. Parliamentary committee, suggested those who want to work in a Govt sector, must have to serve the military forces for at least 5 years. What the hell is this.
I always think. If we have qualification standard for Govt jobs. 60% marks through out the academics and blah blah... why not this applicable to the political leaders as well. If we have to serve the military forces for at least 5 years. Let this good work started with political leaders.
patriotism? Filing murder case on a army officer who shot in self defense is patriotism?, keeping quite to a pro Pakistan j&k cm just because she is from your party is patriotism?. What bjp is doing is politics for its own gain, no one is patriotic, they are fooling the common man, bjp ban beef in some states cause cows are holy while its doesn't in other states like goa or NE states ain't cows holy there?. Bjp stops hajj subside and then promises to give free pilgrimage to Israel to Christians in northeast if they win elections. This is called politics, fooling the common man for its own gain.
@mohammed_87hassan: Excellent decision, Hassan! As I said elsewhere, the length of the ban seemed to be a bit unjustified. Do not worry about criticism, it will only make you better and mentally tougher! Members should also understand that criticism should not degenerate into abuse and mud-slinging.
Religion is the opium of the people, wrote Karl Marx. In a country where a major section of the population swear by their religion, Indian footballer and Kerala Blasters striker C.K. Vineeth chose to ignore the 'high' of a religious identity in the case of his newborn child.
Vineeth, who hails from Kannur in Kerala, and his wife Saranya were blessed with a son recently. He had announced the arrival of his “little game changer” on Twitter and Instagram on February 24, a day after the baby was born in his hometown.
But what really caught the attention of his fans and the general public were two pictures that emerged on social media—one of Vineeth filling up his son's birth certificate, and the other showing 'NIL' written against 'Family religion'.
The 29-year-old is of the opinion that his son should be free to choose his own religion, if at all he wishes to have one. The wonderful gesture has won the hearts of his fans, who lauded him for not forcing the religion of his birth on his child.
The Kerala Blasters forward is gearing up for the Super Cup, the qualification round for which has already begun. The Kerala outfit will take on I-League team NEROCA FC on April 6. The Blasters finished sixth in the Indian Super League, ruling them out for a place in the semifinals of the league, but it gave them a direct entry to the round of 16 of the Super Cup.
"@deepakc Why do you have to be a cunt? Also admins, I've requested my name to not actually be used on here, especially when it is used like that."
This is the post when you called him a cunt...like Debarghya, I too did a did a quick search of "cunt' on the IFN homepage and you, along with some others, have been the one to use it most frequently
We live in a time when things are moving so fast that many of us have difficulty living our lives in more full and meaningful ways. We find it almost impossible to slow down, mainly because there is a cultural taboo against it.
In contemporary society, the expression “slowing down” implies laziness, inertia, or slacking off on the part of the individual who chooses to decelerate.
Words such as “fast” and “slow” are powerful connotations projecting societal values. Take, for example, a person who is fast; he/she is presumed to be someone who can accomplish more in less time.
The faster one can produce, the further ahead he or she can get in their profession. On the other hand, a person who is habitually slow accomplishes less and in all likelihood won’t be successful in life.
It is against contemporary capitalism that extols the virtues of speed, productivity, and accumulation of wealth that we find it increasingly difficult to practice what Gandhi believed: “there is more to life than increasing its speed.”
We seldom ponder the human cost of capitalism. In the relentless pursuit of speed, efficiency, and material possessions we end up spending inordinate amounts of time in modern-day “sweat shops,” which frequently make us error prone, angry, depressed, and ill.
Millions all over the world now pop pills to seek relief from stress, insomnia, hypertension, migraines, gastrointestinal problems, to name but a few, all brought on by unhealthy working practices. Even young people in 30s are now experiencing high burnout from this frenzied world of work.
The work ethic of high speed and ruthless efficiency probably has had the worst impact in Japan where the locals have a word in Japanese for death by overwork, which is called karoshi.
Although the Japanese Government recently reported that there have been 143 victims of karoshi, many watch groups have put the death toll from overwork in Japan in the thousands.
In order to keep up with the fast paced world of business, some people even consume more than coffee just to survive. Potent stimulants like amphetamines have become quite popular among many white-collar professionals in the Western business world.
They use these stimulants to get a euphoric feeling and alertness that usually lasts for most of one’s workday. The side effects of amphetamines are several.
They are very addictive and users of this stimulant come down with acute depression, anxiety and violent behavior. The contemporary work culture of haste has also affected our mental and emotional health.
In 1982, Larry Dossey, an American physician, coined the term “time-sickness” to explain the obsessive concern we have about time, which we think is always fleeting; there isn’t enough of it. So, we need to go faster to keep up. If we use Dossey’s term, then quite possibly most of the whole world is suffering from time sickness.
Many of us have become so obsessed about losing time that we desperately try to save every last scrap of it in order to get our things accomplished. In the recent past, Klaus Schwab, founder and president of World Economic Forum, emphasized in the most blunt terms the importance of speed in contemporary societies: “We are moving from a world in which the big eat the small to one in which the fast eat the slow.”
Everywhere we go we find a mad race against the clock. According to the British psychologist, Guy Claxton, living a life of acceleration has become second nature to us. Claxton is of the opinion that “we have developed an inner psychology of speed, of saving time and maximizing efficiency, which is getting stronger by the day.”
Living in a world of speed has rendered our lives superficial in several important ways. When we are in haste, we can only focus at a surface level without having the time to go deep.
We are unable to make genuine connections with either people or the world around us. We are in such a hurry that we often forget to fully appreciate the food we are eating or the people with whom we are interacting, or places we are visiting.
We are either texting, looking at the screen on our smart phones, or busy taking selfies or other pictures to post immediately on social media.
In these busy, bustling times, we seem to have lost the art of taking it slow by shutting out all the background noise and distractions and simply enjoying the stillness of the moment.
In his novella, Slowness, Milan Kundera has warned us in no uncertain terms about the downside of leading a fast life: “When things happen too fast, nobody can be certain about anything, about anything at all, not even about himself.”
The Slow Movement, which is about promoting slowing down the pace of life, has started in several cities, especially in Western Europe.
This movement was started in in 1986 by Carlo Petrini who protested against the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in Piazza di Spagna in Rome. Petrini’s protest sparked the creation of the slow food movement.
Over time, the slow food movement became an important part of the subculture, which impacted several important facets of human life. In 2004, Carl Honore´ wrote his bestselling non-fiction, In Praise of Slowness, where he describes the Slow Movement thus:
“The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything in a snail’s pace. Nor is it a Luddite attempt to drag the whole planet back to some pre-industrial utopia. On the contrary, the movement is made up of people like you and me, people who want to live better in a fast-paced, modern world. This is why the Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word: balance. Be fast when it makes sense to be fast, and be slow when slowness is called for. Seek to live at what musicians call the tempo giusto – the right speed.”
The Slow Movement is not organized by any single group. People who are genuinely interested in expanding the movement beyond Europe run the movement. Now the popularity of this movement can be seen in the United States, Australia and even in Japan. The Slow Movement has had a big impact in several areas of our lives such as cinema, food, living style, travel, and much more.
Editor's Note: With Russia hosting the 2018 World Cup, this is an op-ed on his native country from former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, chairman of the NY-based Human Rights Foundation and the author of 'Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped'.
Sport can provoke human passion like nothing else, perhaps aside from true love. Every loss, every victory, can provoke heartbreak or exultation -- and that's only the fans. Sports fandom also has an unmatched ability to unite people across borders and boundaries of every kind. Young and old, rich and poor, all can be swept up together to celebrate excellence and competition that provides us an escape from the concerns of daily life.
Sports also creates bonds and memories that last a lifetime. I don't remember exactly how old I was when I learned to play chess, but I clearly remember the 1970 World Cup when I was 7. On our black-and-white TV in Baku, Azerbaijan, I watched Pele and the extraordinary Brazilian champions, the legendary semifinal between West Germany and Italy, and the controversial extra-time goal that eliminated the Soviet Union in the quarterfinals against Uruguay. (The ball was out!)
Forty-eight years later, the World Cup is taking place in Russia for the first time. I won't be there to enjoy it, however, having left my country in 2013. While the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin -- in my dictionary, the only accurate description when one man has been in total power unchallenged for 18 years -- is not hospitable for dissidents or democrats, it is very welcoming to grand sporting spectacles like the World Cup and the Olympic Games.
Just four years ago, Russia hosted the Winter Olympics in Sochi, a subtropical resort that required the most expensive Olympics in history (summer or winter) to slap together venues and residences that were falling apart even before the torch went out. Fifty-one billion dollars doesn't buy what it used to when so much of the money is funneled away. I joked at the time that most of the Sochi gold went to Switzerland, Panama, and the Cayman Islands even before the Games began.
Keep in mind that Russia is not a country with money to spare. The oligarchs buy English football teams and Miami condos, and oil and gas revenue can make for rosy GDP numbers, but most Russians are getting by on less than $500 a month. Even for wealthy countries with low levels of corruption -- South Korea and Japan co-hosting the Cup in 2002 comes to mind -- these events tend to be boondoggles. In a country like Putin's Russia, one of the least free in the world, it's a colorful distraction and a way to fulfill the kleptocratic mandate: privatize the profits, nationalize the costs.
The World Cup will be Sochi times 12, that being the number of host venues across the vast expanse of Russia. Stadium readiness has been a struggle despite the use of prison labor and immigrants from Central Asia and North Korea working in conditions that have resulted in dozens of deaths.
With the Russian economy collapsing, Putin will boast about how he can still bring these events to Russia. The tournament draw put Russia into the weakest group in World Cup history, and Putin will be quick to annex (ahem) any success by the Russian squad for himself, as he did in Sochi.
It's just as clear why FIFA and the IOC like having their events hosted by autocratic regimes, despite their tired pabulum about ideals. In the wake of the Sepp Blatter-era corruption scandals, FIFA is moving to make the World Cup bidding process more transparent. This is laudable, although my personal experience battling the international chess federation, FIDE, taught that these transparency initiatives are often designed to buy time to find better ways to hide the money. International sports organizations often exploit a legal limbo between jurisdictions, a quasi-diplomatic status that is easily abused.
What is to be done? As a sportsman who represented my country for decades, the Soviet Union and then Russia -- and yes, chess is sport if you're doing it right -- I have trouble with boycotts that unfairly punish athletes. Had a unified international response against Russia hosting the World Cup come early enough it might have been possible to relocate it. Qatar is still scheduled to host the Cup in 2022 despite numerous abuses and scandals, and after North Korea's propaganda coup at the PyeongChang Winter Games this year, it's clear that collective response is a lost cause.
Everyone moves on to the next event, the next crisis. Russia has already been forgiven for the worst doping scandal in history. FIFA's massive 2015 corruption case is still in the courts.
In Sochi, activists used the international media presence to expose Russia's anti-LGBTQ laws, although Putin was quick to clamp down as soon as the Games were over. An environmental activist arrested during the Games was put in prison for two years for spray-painting a protest message on a fence.
But during the World Cup, the police might be relatively cautious in handling foreign visitors and journalists. The bold should exploit this to peek behind the curtain and report truthfully on the dire conditions in Russia.
We can support the beautiful game without supporting the world's ugliest regimes.
Comments
1) DEMONETIZATION: The main aim of this horrendous decision was to remove the black money from the economy. How stupid one can be. Black money is not a static problem. Its a continuous process by which people avoid the taxes and store their money in terms of cash, gold, and many other forms of property. You can't remove the problem of black money in one shot. For that we have to simplify the tax system, lower the tax rate and give discount on timely paid taxes. And more than that we need to implement strong laws and made a robust income tax department. Instead Modi did this blunder. And as result more than 100 innocent people lost their lives, millions of people lost their job temporarily, and countless people suffer in one and other way. Unlike Manmohan Singh, Modi never apologies for his misdeeds.
2)GST : Modi himself protest against GST, when UPA govt try to implement GST at their tenure. So I know most of the people know about GST. It is called Goods and service tax, the main purpose of GST to simply the tax system and removing the cascading effect from the market. So what is cascading effect, in a simple way, we can say that when we give multiple tax on a single item, and the tax is compounded each time is called cascading effect, But this govt doesn't know what the GST stands for, they have set 4 tax slabs for different items, and few things kept outside of GST, like Petrol, Disel, Liquor..etc. So it is not simple in nature and not fulfilling the first condition. Not a single country in this world who implemented GST have more than one tax slab, so you can't called it GST. Second problem is without much preparation they implemented it as quickly as possible just to get some political mileage. And as a result GDP growth further slow down after Demonetization.
3) EXTREME HINDUISM: First of all Hindu is a philosophy is not a religion. Hindu is a philosophy of acceptance, peace and tolerance. But this saffron brigade want to rewrite the Hindu philosophy. A philosophy of hate, intolerance, and Hindu Muslim division.God save this people. One thing I want to say that, "India is a diverse country, it has multiple number of language, multiple type of physical attributes as well as multiple type of culture and believe, never try to monopolize it, Diversity is our uniqueness try to respect it." But who will teach them, their brain placed at their knee. They will never understand.
4)EXTREME PATRIOTISM: First of all, those who killed Gandhi Ji can never be patriotic. Neither they took part in freedom movement nor they respect the tri-color after independence. How they can teach us a true patriotism. By their definition we all are anti- national one and other way. Even Virat Kohli is anti national because be married outside India. I have read an editorial about Extreme patriotism published on Indian express which was beautifully depicted, why extreme patriotism not good for a nation. I can't recalled it. So what the Extreme Patriotism can do, I just quote it from a source.
" Patriotism is defined as devoted love, support and defense of one’s country; national loyalty. Nationalism, on the other hand, to quote Albert Einstein, “is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” Nationalism is an extreme form of patriotism, often related to a feeling of superiority over other country.many citizens’ expression of patriotism is beginning to bleed into nationalism, which should be concerning for humans as a whole.
Nationalism leads people to think in a combative “us-against-them” mindset, as well as cultivating a sense of superiority that is damaging to our global relationships. It also tends to replace actual thoughtful analysis and critical inquiry with blind justifications in order to feel good about ourselves and our country.
My final issue with extreme patriotism comes when it replaces actual critical thought about what our country is doing.
https://www.tommiemedia.com/featured-news/the-problem-with-extreme-patriotism/
Right now the new drama has started. Parliamentary committee, suggested those who want to work in a Govt sector, must have to serve the military forces for at least 5 years. What the hell is this.
I always think. If we have qualification standard for Govt jobs. 60% marks through out the academics and blah blah... why not this applicable to the political leaders as well. If we have to serve the military forces for at least 5 years. Let this good work started with political leaders.
Do not worry about criticism, it will only make you better and mentally tougher! Members should also understand that criticism should not degenerate into abuse and mud-slinging.
Religion is the opium of the people, wrote Karl Marx. In a country where a major section of the population swear by their religion, Indian footballer and Kerala Blasters striker C.K. Vineeth chose to ignore the 'high' of a religious identity in the case of his newborn child.
Vineeth, who hails from Kannur in Kerala, and his wife Saranya were blessed with a son recently. He had announced the arrival of his “little game changer” on Twitter and Instagram on February 24, a day after the baby was born in his hometown.
But what really caught the attention of his fans and the general public were two pictures that emerged on social media—one of Vineeth filling up his son's birth certificate, and the other showing 'NIL' written against 'Family religion'.
The 29-year-old is of the opinion that his son should be free to choose his own religion, if at all he wishes to have one. The wonderful gesture has won the hearts of his fans, who lauded him for not forcing the religion of his birth on his child.
The Kerala Blasters forward is gearing up for the Super Cup, the qualification round for which has already begun. The Kerala outfit will take on I-League team NEROCA FC on April 6. The Blasters finished sixth in the Indian Super League, ruling them out for a place in the semifinals of the league, but it gave them a direct entry to the round of 16 of the Super Cup.
https://www.theweek.in/news/sports/2018/03/16/ck-vineeth-writes-nil-for-religion-in-son-birth-certificate.html
This is the post when you called him a cunt...like Debarghya, I too did a did a quick search of "cunt' on the IFN homepage and you, along with some others, have been the one to use it most frequently
Anyway, let's move ahead
By slowing down, we will be happier
We live in a time when things are moving so fast that many of us have difficulty living our lives in more full and meaningful ways. We find it almost impossible to slow down, mainly because there is a cultural taboo against it.
In contemporary society, the expression “slowing down” implies laziness, inertia, or slacking off on the part of the individual who chooses to decelerate.
Words such as “fast” and “slow” are powerful connotations projecting societal values. Take, for example, a person who is fast; he/she is presumed to be someone who can accomplish more in less time.
The faster one can produce, the further ahead he or she can get in their profession. On the other hand, a person who is habitually slow accomplishes less and in all likelihood won’t be successful in life.
It is against contemporary capitalism that extols the virtues of speed, productivity, and accumulation of wealth that we find it increasingly difficult to practice what Gandhi believed: “there is more to life than increasing its speed.”
We seldom ponder the human cost of capitalism. In the relentless pursuit of speed, efficiency, and material possessions we end up spending inordinate amounts of time in modern-day “sweat shops,” which frequently make us error prone, angry, depressed, and ill.
Millions all over the world now pop pills to seek relief from stress, insomnia, hypertension, migraines, gastrointestinal problems, to name but a few, all brought on by unhealthy working practices. Even young people in 30s are now experiencing high burnout from this frenzied world of work.
The work ethic of high speed and ruthless efficiency probably has had the worst impact in Japan where the locals have a word in Japanese for death by overwork, which is called karoshi.
Although the Japanese Government recently reported that there have been 143 victims of karoshi, many watch groups have put the death toll from overwork in Japan in the thousands.
In order to keep up with the fast paced world of business, some people even consume more than coffee just to survive. Potent stimulants like amphetamines have become quite popular among many white-collar professionals in the Western business world.
They use these stimulants to get a euphoric feeling and alertness that usually lasts for most of one’s workday. The side effects of amphetamines are several.
They are very addictive and users of this stimulant come down with acute depression, anxiety and violent behavior. The contemporary work culture of haste has also affected our mental and emotional health.
In 1982, Larry Dossey, an American physician, coined the term “time-sickness” to explain the obsessive concern we have about time, which we think is always fleeting; there isn’t enough of it. So, we need to go faster to keep up. If we use Dossey’s term, then quite possibly most of the whole world is suffering from time sickness.
Many of us have become so obsessed about losing time that we desperately try to save every last scrap of it in order to get our things accomplished. In the recent past, Klaus Schwab, founder and president of World Economic Forum, emphasized in the most blunt terms the importance of speed in contemporary societies: “We are moving from a world in which the big eat the small to one in which the fast eat the slow.”
Everywhere we go we find a mad race against the clock. According to the British psychologist, Guy Claxton, living a life of acceleration has become second nature to us. Claxton is of the opinion that “we have developed an inner psychology of speed, of saving time and maximizing efficiency, which is getting stronger by the day.”
Living in a world of speed has rendered our lives superficial in several important ways. When we are in haste, we can only focus at a surface level without having the time to go deep.
We are unable to make genuine connections with either people or the world around us. We are in such a hurry that we often forget to fully appreciate the food we are eating or the people with whom we are interacting, or places we are visiting.
We are either texting, looking at the screen on our smart phones, or busy taking selfies or other pictures to post immediately on social media.
In these busy, bustling times, we seem to have lost the art of taking it slow by shutting out all the background noise and distractions and simply enjoying the stillness of the moment.
In his novella, Slowness, Milan Kundera has warned us in no uncertain terms about the downside of leading a fast life: “When things happen too fast, nobody can be certain about anything, about anything at all, not even about himself.”
The Slow Movement, which is about promoting slowing down the pace of life, has started in several cities, especially in Western Europe.
This movement was started in in 1986 by Carlo Petrini who protested against the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in Piazza di Spagna in Rome. Petrini’s protest sparked the creation of the slow food movement.
Over time, the slow food movement became an important part of the subculture, which impacted several important facets of human life. In 2004, Carl Honore´ wrote his bestselling non-fiction, In Praise of Slowness, where he describes the Slow Movement thus:
“The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything in a snail’s pace. Nor is it a Luddite attempt to drag the whole planet back to some pre-industrial utopia. On the contrary, the movement is made up of people like you and me, people who want to live better in a fast-paced, modern world. This is why the Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word: balance. Be fast when it makes sense to be fast, and be slow when slowness is called for. Seek to live at what musicians call the tempo giusto – the right speed.”
The Slow Movement is not organized by any single group. People who are genuinely interested in expanding the movement beyond Europe run the movement. Now the popularity of this movement can be seen in the United States, Australia and even in Japan. The Slow Movement has had a big impact in several areas of our lives such as cinema, food, living style, travel, and much more.
http://www.espn.in/football/fifa-world-cup/4/blog/post/3427563/world-cup-2018-russia-is-the-ugly-side-of-the-beautiful-game-says-garry-kasparov
Editor's Note: With Russia hosting the 2018 World Cup, this is an op-ed on his native country from former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, chairman of the NY-based Human Rights Foundation and the author of 'Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped'.
Sport can provoke human passion like nothing else, perhaps aside from true love. Every loss, every victory, can provoke heartbreak or exultation -- and that's only the fans. Sports fandom also has an unmatched ability to unite people across borders and boundaries of every kind. Young and old, rich and poor, all can be swept up together to celebrate excellence and competition that provides us an escape from the concerns of daily life.
Sports also creates bonds and memories that last a lifetime. I don't remember exactly how old I was when I learned to play chess, but I clearly remember the 1970 World Cup when I was 7. On our black-and-white TV in Baku, Azerbaijan, I watched Pele and the extraordinary Brazilian champions, the legendary semifinal between West Germany and Italy, and the controversial extra-time goal that eliminated the Soviet Union in the quarterfinals against Uruguay. (The ball was out!)
Forty-eight years later, the World Cup is taking place in Russia for the first time. I won't be there to enjoy it, however, having left my country in 2013. While the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin -- in my dictionary, the only accurate description when one man has been in total power unchallenged for 18 years -- is not hospitable for dissidents or democrats, it is very welcoming to grand sporting spectacles like the World Cup and the Olympic Games.
Just four years ago, Russia hosted the Winter Olympics in Sochi, a subtropical resort that required the most expensive Olympics in history (summer or winter) to slap together venues and residences that were falling apart even before the torch went out. Fifty-one billion dollars doesn't buy what it used to when so much of the money is funneled away. I joked at the time that most of the Sochi gold went to Switzerland, Panama, and the Cayman Islands even before the Games began.
Keep in mind that Russia is not a country with money to spare. The oligarchs buy English football teams and Miami condos, and oil and gas revenue can make for rosy GDP numbers, but most Russians are getting by on less than $500 a month. Even for wealthy countries with low levels of corruption -- South Korea and Japan co-hosting the Cup in 2002 comes to mind -- these events tend to be boondoggles. In a country like Putin's Russia, one of the least free in the world, it's a colorful distraction and a way to fulfill the kleptocratic mandate: privatize the profits, nationalize the costs.
The World Cup will be Sochi times 12, that being the number of host venues across the vast expanse of Russia. Stadium readiness has been a struggle despite the use of prison labor and immigrants from Central Asia and North Korea working in conditions that have resulted in dozens of deaths.
With the Russian economy collapsing, Putin will boast about how he can still bring these events to Russia. The tournament draw put Russia into the weakest group in World Cup history, and Putin will be quick to annex (ahem) any success by the Russian squad for himself, as he did in Sochi.
It's just as clear why FIFA and the IOC like having their events hosted by autocratic regimes, despite their tired pabulum about ideals. In the wake of the Sepp Blatter-era corruption scandals, FIFA is moving to make the World Cup bidding process more transparent. This is laudable, although my personal experience battling the international chess federation, FIDE, taught that these transparency initiatives are often designed to buy time to find better ways to hide the money. International sports organizations often exploit a legal limbo between jurisdictions, a quasi-diplomatic status that is easily abused.
What is to be done? As a sportsman who represented my country for decades, the Soviet Union and then Russia -- and yes, chess is sport if you're doing it right -- I have trouble with boycotts that unfairly punish athletes. Had a unified international response against Russia hosting the World Cup come early enough it might have been possible to relocate it. Qatar is still scheduled to host the Cup in 2022 despite numerous abuses and scandals, and after North Korea's propaganda coup at the PyeongChang Winter Games this year, it's clear that collective response is a lost cause.
Everyone moves on to the next event, the next crisis. Russia has already been forgiven for the worst doping scandal in history. FIFA's massive 2015 corruption case is still in the courts.
In Sochi, activists used the international media presence to expose Russia's anti-LGBTQ laws, although Putin was quick to clamp down as soon as the Games were over. An environmental activist arrested during the Games was put in prison for two years for spray-painting a protest message on a fence.
But during the World Cup, the police might be relatively cautious in handling foreign visitors and journalists. The bold should exploit this to peek behind the curtain and report truthfully on the dire conditions in Russia.
We can support the beautiful game without supporting the world's ugliest regimes.