Commonwealth Games and Cricket World Cup will go ahead

NEW DELHI // The next Commonwealth Games and the 2011 Cricket World Cup will go ahead as planned, Indian authorities say, despite last week's attacks in Mumbai. Randhir Singh, the secretary general of the Indian Olympic Association, said that the Commonwealth Games will be staged in New Delhi as scheduled in 2010. "The Mumbai attacks are tragic, but high-level security has already been planned for the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi," Singh said, who is also the general secretary of the Olympic Council of Asia. "We're determined to stage the Commonwealth Games and will make no compromise on security."

Singh's assertion follows news reports quoting that the Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Michael Hooper saying that India's security situation was being monitored and there was a possibility of the 2010 event being shifted to another country. "The security arrangements will match those at the Beijing Olympic Games this year, and what is expected at the 2012 London Olympics," Singh added.

New Delhi was chosen to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games after several failed bids, becoming only the second Asian city to be allocated the games that bring together athletes from the former British Empire. Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur became the first Asian city to host the Commonwealth Games in 1998. The Indian cricket board has rejected reports of the possibility of shifting the 2011 World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is expected to discuss the World Cup during next week's Chief Executives Committee meeting in Cape Town. Sharad Pawar, a senior minister in India's union cabinet who recently finished his term as BCCI president, told India's independent CNN-IBN television that the government would take "all precautionary measures." "Our government will take corrective actions on security," said Pawar, who will be ICC president at the time of the 2011 World Cup.

Another senior Indian board official, Rajiv Shukla, said that talk of moving the World Cup out of the subcontinent was too far-fetched. "All security issues will be sorted out, there won't be any problems in staging the World Cup," Shukla said to the Press Trust of India. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is adamant the next World Cup will be played in the subcontinent. "There is no suggestion under consideration to shift the World Cup from the subcontinent," the PCB chief operating officer Salim Altaf said.

"The International Cricket Council has agreed with us that the event will be played in the Asian countries." The deadly attacks in Mumbai have raised political tension between India and Pakistan after claims the militants originated from Pakistan. India's cricket officials have not yet received the mandatory government approval to tour Pakistan in January. *AP