A Commonwealth Games story that the BBC choose not to remind us of

Amidst the BBC's horrified coverage of India's Commonwealth Games problems, have you noticed any space being given to a potentially more serious threat:

'We warn the international community not to send their people to the 2010 Hockey World Cup, IPL (Indian Premier League Cricket Tournament) and Commonwealth Games. Nor should their people visit India – if they do, they will be responsible for the consequences.

We, the mujahideen of 313 Brigade, vow to continue attacks all across India until the Indian Army leaves Kashmir and gives the Kashmiris their right of self-determination. We assure the Muslims of the subcontinent that we will never forget the massacre of the Muslims in Gujarat and the demolition of Babri Mosque. The entire Muslim community is one body and we will take revenge for all injustices and tyranny. We again warn the Indian government to compensate for all its injustices, otherwise they will see our next action.'

Have the BBC forgotten what Pakistani originated, and maybe influenced & supported, terrorists wrought in Mumbai just under two years ago?

In 2008 Islamic terrorists killed at least 173 people and wounded at least another 308. The targets then included the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Oberoi Trident, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, the Orthodox Jewish-owned Nariman House, and Cama Hospital (a women and children's hospital). The only attacker who was captured alive, Ajmal Kasab, disclosed that the attackers were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based terrorist organization. The Indian Government said that the attackers came from Pakistan, and their controllers were in Pakistan. These claims were initailly pooh poohed by Pakistan and its friends in the West, including some interviewed by the BBC. So these 'people' must have been distraught when after more than a month of denying the nationality of the attackers, Pakistan's Information Minister Sherry Rehman officially accepted Ajmal Kasab's nationality as Pakistani. A month later Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik, in a TV news briefing, confirmed that parts of the attack had been planned in Pakistan and said that six people, including the alleged mastermind, were being held in connection with the attacks.

So should Commonwealth athletes be more worrid by leaky rooms or Pakistani terrorists? And will the BBC ever cover such a threat?

The BBC and India & Pakistan

Is it my imagination or are the BBC enjoying India's Commonwealth Games travails just a little too much? The BBC's love for Pakistan, as an Islamic state, has long meant that the BBC has taken Pakistan's side against India; you can see this over Kashmir and even in the way the BBC reported on the Pakistani inspired terrorist attacks on Mumbai.

Imagine how much more sympathetic the BBC would have been if it was Pakistan who were hosting the Commonwealth Games rather than India and if they were experiencing similar problems. Not that that would happen as who would allocate any major games to a near failed state like Pakistan?

The bonds between India and Britain

The BBC have a jokey report about the efforts Delhi is making to ensure that their customer facing staff for the upcoming Commonwealth Games speak English and speak it clearly and correctly:

'For the staff of the Delhi Metro this means brushing up on their English language skills and being trained to replace their local, Indian accents with clipped, British ones.

None of the students in the class are native speakers of English and the emphasis is on making sure they speak the language with the right pronunciation.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

My English was never very good. But now I am much more fluent and a lot more confident”

End Quote Kailash Chowdhury Delhi Metro worker

Ms Gupta is from the Delhi-based British Academy for English Language and has been doing this for 17 years - teaching English language to those not familiar with it.

"The trainees who are here come from states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and have a strong regional accent," Ms Gupta explains.

"So we first have to reduce their accent and then after neutralising it, we have to give them British accents, since that's the correct way to speak English," she says.'

Quite right to and a matter of pride to those being tutored but if a company tried to run a scheme like this in the UK, how long before they were called racist by the BBC? But the bigger point is that Indians like the British and want closer links but the last Labour government and their propaganda arm the BBC were obsessed with relations with India's old enemy Pakistan.