The Beijing Olympics opened today, the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008 at 8 minutes and 8 seconds past 8 PM Beijing Time. Chinese have not only built physical infrastructures, but also controlled pollution around the locations that will be part of Olympic activities in any way. Factories have been closed. Some 90% cars of Beijing will remain in garages. Missiles got deployed to avoid rain during opening ceremony. The Chinese have proved today that they are the best at whatever they do with this Olympic (images).

I was never good in sports, nor I am a big sports enthusiast. I look Beijing Olympics from a different angle.

Indian Technologies for Beijing Olympics

Some small Indian companies have also contributed to make the Beijing Olympics, the sporting extravaganza a success.

The newly upgraded Beijing international airport will have the 45heat recovery ventilators made by Bry Air, a Gurgaon-based company. Bry Air’s units reclaim energy from exhaust airflows of the air conditioners and then use eco-friendly heat exchangers to heat or cool incoming fresh air, as per the need. Bry Air units will make sure that those attending the event at the main conference centre do not suffer from induced attention deficient disorder, which brings a drop in productivity and loss in concentration, due to pollutants in stale air circulating in conventional air-conditioned rooms.

Another Indian company will take care of safe landing and smooth check-in. The solution has been provided by the Kolkata-based Skytech Solutions, which has designed and implemented the airport messaging software to act as the nerve centre of Beijing airport’s communication system during the premier sporting event. Called CIIMS (Central Information Integration Management Systems), “the software is an automated messaging service between the airport and the air-traffic controllers, various gates, terminals, ground crew and the numerous airlines.” CIIMS is an intelligent communications network, programmed to react to multiple situations at a time, and respond accordingly.

Ahmedabad-based Sintex Industries has collaborated with UK-based toiletries major Poly John International to manufacture and supply nearly 3,000 portable toilets to the Beijing Olympic Games. The toilets, designed by Poly John, are manufactured at Kalol, near Ahmedabad, under the brand name Pace. Sintex will use special plastics and some metal parts as fixtures for the toilets that weigh 85 kg each and can be fixed and unfixed in an hour to other events easily. Each toilet will be manufactured in three conditional processes, roto-moulding, extrusion and thermoforming, and will cost nearly Rs 20,000.

And finally, a Pune-based company is making the rowing boats and canoes for the water sports events. Sunny Sebastian’s Sunny Water Sports is going to supply about 200 kayaks, roving boats and canoes for the water sports events. To make sure it’s the best in quality, the firm has forged an alliance with a European water sports major and designed it to match up to international standards. I had mentioned of this company in my ‘Entrepreneur India‘.

Source: Economic Times

Per capita Income and Olympic bid

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha has come out with a study correlating the per capita income of the country and the holding of Olympic game.

“Most countries have hosted their first post-war Olympics when their average incomes have moved into a tight band of between $4,000 and $8,000, calculated using 1990 purchasing power parity, or PPP, dollars.” Japan had a per capita income of $5,668 in 1964. South Korea had a per capita income of $7,621 in 1988, the year the Games came to Seoul. Interestingly, even more developed nations had average incomes in the same range when they hosted their first post-war Olympics: London in 1948 ($6,746), Helsinki in 1952 ($4,674), Melbourne in 1956 ($8,108), Rome in 1960 ($5,916) and Moscow in 1980 ($6,427). The exceptions are few: Munich in 1972 ($11,481), Montreal in 1976 ($14,902) and Atlanta in 1992 ($23,298). But when Hitler and his thugs tried to use the Berlin Olympics in 1936 to showcase their achievements, Germany had a per capita income of $4,451.” Source: Live Mint

India may try to host its first Olympics when its average income is somewhere in that range. And as per Niranjan, it will be only in 2020 with present rate of GDP growth rate.

Indians will have to wait for long 12 years to watch an Olympic in India, perhaps in New Delhi. Till then, Indians will have to be content with the various political Olympics (elections) getting held every year somewhere or every five years throughout the country.

But if Indians can throw at least some disruptive political parties, mostly regional ones in Indian Ocean and work hard, Olympics can come much earlier.
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