Competitive Intelligence or Competitive Dependence?

An election-season joke with some uncomfortable lessons for management.

Imagine a company whose marketing department is running out of ideas. The brainstorming sessions are endless, the coffee machine is working overtime, and the advertising agency has exhausted its collection of PowerPoint slides.

Just when the CEO is about to ask for a new agency, a competitor makes a public statement. Suddenly, the marketing team sits up. “Brilliant! That's our campaign!”

The slogan is born. The brand is refreshed. The communication strategy is ready.

And the competitor? It has just completed a piece of unpaid consultancy.

Welcome to the wonderful world of competitive strategy, where sometimes your rival does your thinking for you!

The great political outsourcing model

Consider the political satire that has been circulating around India's election campaigns.

• In 2014, the phrase “chaiwala” became an ingredient in a larger political narrative. In the joke, Mani Shankar Aiyar inadvertently hands the rival camp a communication opportunity. The response? Chai Pe Charcha!
• In 2019, “Chowkidar Chor Hai” becomes the supposed gift that keeps giving, inspiring the counter-campaign “Main Bhi Chowkidar.”
• In 2024, the “Modi has no family” remark is turned into the “Modi Ka Parivar” messaging opportunity.

And in our fictional preview of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh election, another political jibe arrives just in time to rescue an exhausted PR team. The script practically writes itself.

Opposition: “We have a new attack!”

Rival's marketing team: “Excellent. We have a new campaign!”

Finance department: “Who approved the consultancy fee?”

Marketing head: “Nobody. The competition did it for free!”

Of course, this is political satire, not a claim that every slogan originated in precisely this way. The underlying joke is about how an opponent's words can be reframed into a communication advantage.

However, beneath the laughter lies a surprisingly useful management lesson.

Lesson 1: Your competitor can provide the idea. You must provide the strategy.

In product development, companies regularly study competitors. They examine their features, pricing, distribution, customer feedback and advertising.

Sometimes, however, the best market insight comes from an unexpected source.

A competitor launches a product that customers love. Another company studies it, improves the proposition and launches a stronger alternative. That is competitive intelligence at work.

However, there is a fine line between learning from your competitor and depending on your competitor for inspiration.

If every new product idea, advertising campaign and business decision begins with “What has our competitor done?”, you are not leading the market. You are following it with better stationery.

The real test of innovation is not how quickly you react to your competitor's idea. It is whether you understand the customer problem well enough to create something valuable yourself.

Our competitor may provide the stimulus, but your ability to convert it into a compelling proposition determines the outcome.

Management principle:  Competitor awareness is essential. Competitor dependence is dangerous. 

Lesson 2: Product innovation is one thing. Branding is another.

The satire gives one side the role of product innovator and the other the role of branding expert.

It is an amusing division of labour, but it highlights an important distinction. A product may be excellent, yet fail because customers do not understand its value. Conversely, a well-packaged proposition may attract attention even when its underlying merits are debatable.

That is why marketing is not simply about inventing a slogan. It involves identifying the target audience, understanding its concerns, positioning the offering, selecting the right message and communicating it consistently.

A slogan is merely the tip of the iceberg. The real work lies beneath the surface. In business, we often see technically superior products lose to competitors who communicate their value more effectively.

The engineer says, “Our product has seventeen superior technical features.”

The customer asks, “Fine. But what will it do for me?”

The marketing manager smiles. “Let us discuss that over coffee.”

A message is not a strategy until it is translated into positioning, packaging, repetition and a reason for the target audience to care.

Management principle:  Customers do not buy your internal specifications. They buy the value they perceive.

Lesson 3: Reframing is a powerful management skill.

A statement intended as criticism can sometimes be repositioned as a message of identity, solidarity or differentiation. This is called reframing: changing the interpretive context through which an audience understands a message.

The same principle operates in corporate life.

A competitor calls your product expensive. You explain the lower total cost of ownership.

A customer complains about a delivery delay. You acknowledge the failure, explain the corrective action and demonstrate how recurrence will be prevented.

An employee points out a process weakness. A defensive manager sees an accusation; an effective manager sees an opportunity for improvement.

The difference lies in the response.

However, reframing is not magic. A poor-quality product cannot be rescued indefinitely by clever advertising. A missed delivery cannot be corrected by changing the colour of the presentation slide.

Communication can influence perception, but performance must eventually support the promise.

Listen not only to what your competitor says, but also to how your organisation can respond. However, never confuse reacting to a competitor with building your own strategy.

Management principle: Reframe the message, but do not ignore the underlying reality.

Lesson 4: Attention is not achievement.

This may be the most important lesson of all. In marketing, the AIDA model takes us from Attention to Interest, Desire and Action. A catchy message may win the first stage, but the remaining stages still require work.

In business, we make the same mistake when we celebrate activity instead of outcomes. A million advertising impressions do not automatically translate into profitable sales. A thousand customer enquiries do not guarantee a thousand orders. A beautifully presented improvement project does not necessarily reduce defects, downtime or cost. A packed meeting room does not mean a problem has been solved.

We must distinguish between leading indicators (process metrics), intermediate outcomes and the final result metrics.

In a factory, for instance, a team may celebrate completing five Kaizen activities. But the more important questions are:

• Has the change reduced cycle time?
• Has rejection decreased?
• Has productivity improved?
• Has the improvement been sustained?

In the same way, the success of political communication cannot be judged from the popularity of a slogan alone. The eventual electoral outcome depends on many factors, including leadership, organisation, local issues, candidate credibility and voter sentiment.

In business, campaign reach is not revenue, enquiries are not orders, and orders are not necessarily profitable sales. In politics, the analogy is voter response and electoral outcomes—not a direct equivalent of a commercial sales funnel.

Management principle: Measure outcomes, not merely the noise generated on the way to them.

Lesson 5: Stop reacting. Start learning.

Imagine a management team that holds an emergency meeting every time a competitor launches a product.

Monday: competitor launches a low-cost product.

Tuesday: your company announces a discount.

Wednesday: competitor improves its warranty.

Thursday: your company extends its warranty.

Friday: competitor launches a new advertising campaign.

Saturday: your marketing head requests a larger budget.

Sunday: the CEO asks why profitability is declining.

The company has been extremely busy. It has also been extremely reactive.

This is where continuous improvement becomes relevant. The PDCA cycle—Plan, Do, Check, Act—requires organisations to plan an intervention, implement it, study the results and standardise or revise the approach.

The critical word is learn.

After every campaign, product launch or competitive move, reflect & ask:

What worked? What did not? Why? What should we repeat? What should we stop doing?

Without that discipline, every new challenge becomes another emergency. With it, each challenge becomes an input for better decisions.

A winning organisation converts feedback into institutional learning instead of waiting for the next crisis—or the next opponent's speech.

Management principle: A mature organisation does not merely accumulate experience. It converts experience into learning.

Lesson 6: Never outsource your thinking to your competitor.

Here is where the political joke meets corporate reality.

A business that relies exclusively on competitor reactions will eventually lose sight of its own customers. It will imitate pricing instead of understanding willingness to pay. It will copy product features instead of identifying unmet needs. It will chase market trends without asking whether they fit its strategy.

The competitor becomes the company's unofficial product manager, marketing consultant and strategic planner. The only missing item is a purchase order. And the invoice, of course, arrives indirectly—in the form of reduced margins, delayed decisions and lost opportunities.

Competitive intelligence should inform your strategy, not replace it.

The strongest organisations know what their competitors are doing. More importantly, they know what they themselves are trying to achieve.

The final management takeaway

The political satire imagines a rather unusual business arrangement:

One organisation generates the talking points. Another converts them into campaigns. The communication machinery amplifies the message. And the audience ultimately decides how much of it to accept.

In management terms, this is a useful reminder that value creation involves several distinct capabilities: insight, innovation, positioning, communication and execution.

Being good at one does not guarantee success at the others.

So, the next time your competitor launches a campaign, announces a product or makes a provocative statement, resist the temptation to call an emergency meeting immediately.

First, ask three questions:

1. Is this genuinely relevant to our customers?

2. Does it require a response, or are we simply reacting?

3. What can we learn that will improve our own strategy?

And if you still cannot find an answer, by all means call the marketing team. Just make sure you do not ask your competitor to chair the meeting. After all, the best competitive advantage is not having a rival who keeps giving you ideas. It is having an organisation that knows how to generate, test and execute its own.

The ultimate management principle?

Let your competitor be your source of intelligence—not your source of inspiration.

And if your competitor insists on doing your PR for free, at least have the courtesy to send a thank-you note.

No agency fees. No creative charges. Just remember to check the return on investment!

India needs innovation, not dependence – Say No to Starlink

India needs innovation, not dependence – Say No to Starlink

Does India really need Elon Musk's Starlink, or does it need to strengthen what it has already built?

Whenever a new technology arrives with a global brand and a promise to change the world, we tend to assume that embracing it is a sign of progress. Anyone questioning its necessity risks being labelled anti-technology, protectionist or opposed to innovation. The debate surrounding Elon Musk's Starlink offers an opportunity to ask these questions.

• Should we accept every new technology just because it is new? 
• Should we consider a technology essential simply because it has succeeded elsewhere? 
• More importantly, Should India feel obliged to welcome every foreign company on its terms?

At the outset, let us not get confused between availability and necessity. Any country should welcome a technology that solves a real problem, however, it should not mistake technological availability for technological necessity.

Will Starlink solve any problem in India?: Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX, uses a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites to provide broadband connectivity. Its principal advantage is that it can reach places where laying fibre-optic cables or building conventional mobile networks is difficult, expensive or commercially unattractive. That is a genuine technological achievement. However, India is not a country waiting for the internet to arrive for the first time.

India has invested enormously in mobile telecommunications, fibre networks, digital payments and public digital infrastructure. According to the Government of India's figures published in February 2026, more than 6.31 lakh villages had 4G mobile connectivity, while approximately 98% of villages had mobile connectivity. The BharatNet programme is also extending broadband infrastructure to rural areas.

These figures may not mean that every household has a reliable internet connection, or that every village enjoys the same quality of service. Coverage on a map is not the same as dependable connectivity at every home. Nevertheless, they establish an important fact: India already has a substantial terrestrial telecommunications network. 

The question, therefore, is not whether Starlink can provide internet connectivity. It can. The question is: Where does Starlink offer a meaningful advantage over India's existing networks, and who is willing and able to pay for it? For a remote Himalayan settlement, an island community, a disaster-response team or a location where terrestrial infrastructure is impractical, satellite broadband may be an excellent solution. For millions of Indians who already receive affordable internet through mobile networks and fibre connections, why should satellite broadband become a national priority? A technology can be useful without being universally necessary.

Cost is the most important consideration for Indian consumers: Whether one likes it or not, India is a highly-cost-sensitive-market. India's telecommunications revolution has been driven not merely by connectivity but by affordability. Mobile data has become accessible to a vast population, enabling people to use digital payments, access education, communicate with family, conduct business and consume information at relatively low cost.

Satellite broadband operates under a different economic model. It requires specialised user equipment, satellite capacity and associated infrastructure. In December 2025, reports of Starlink's proposed Indian residential pricing cited a monthly charge of ₹8,600 and a one-time equipment cost of ₹34,000. Starlink subsequently clarified that the displayed prices were not finalised Indian tariffs. They should therefore be treated as indicative reported figures, not confirmed commercial prices. It can go up but will not come down though. 

Even as an illustration, these figures raise an obvious question. How many ordinary Indian households would choose to spend thousands of rupees every month on satellite internet when terrestrial alternatives are available at a fraction of that cost? India's digital revolution depends on reaching the masses, not just serving customers who can afford premium connectivity. If a family already has adequate mobile broadband, Starlink may offer little additional value for its price. If a village has no reliable terrestrial connection, the calculation changes considerably.

The relevant measure of progress is not how advanced a technology looks, but how effectively and affordably it solves the user's problem.

Satellite phones, satellite internet and a question of necessity: We should distinguish between satellite phones and satellite broadband. However, the underlying question is similar: when should we use satellite connectivity instead of terrestrial infrastructure? Satellite communication is indispensable in certain circumstances. Ships at sea, aircraft, remote expeditions, emergency teams and people in isolated locations may have no practical alternative.

So, should every person who already has reliable mobile connectivity need a satellite phone? Of course not. The same reasoning applies to satellite internet. If mobile networks and fibre broadband can provide reliable, affordable service, they should remain the preferred options for most users. Satellite connectivity should fill the gaps, provide resilience and support specialised requirements. There is no need to replace a functioning solution simply because another solution is available.

In operational excellence, we would first identify the problem, understand its root cause and evaluate possible countermeasures. We would not purchase an expensive machine before establishing whether it addresses a genuine constraint. Why should our approach to national digital infrastructure be any different?

National security is not an inconvenience: Internet connectivity is no longer merely a commercial service. Communications infrastructure has strategic importance, particularly when it involves foreign-controlled technology, critical networks and sensitive geographical areas. India must be satisfied that satellite operators comply with applicable security requirements, lawful interception obligations, data governance rules and other conditions imposed by its regulators. It must also assess how services can be managed during emergencies and how security concerns in sensitive areas can be addressed. These are legitimate questions, not excuses that should automatically be dismissed as bureaucratic obstacles.

A responsible government has two obligations: protect the country and enable innovation. Neither obligation should be used to avoid the other. A foreign company seeking access to India's market must understand that commercial opportunity comes with regulatory responsibilities. India is not obliged to compromise its national interests merely because the technology is sophisticated or its owner is influential.

Is this really about Starlink, or about Elon Musk?: The debate becomes more interesting when commercial interests enter the picture. Elon Musk has criticised delays in Starlink's entry into India and alleged that powerful domestic business interests are obstructing competition. He escalated his criticism by questioning Mukesh Ambani's influence over Indian decision-making. The Indian government, meanwhile, has rejected claims of discriminatory treatment and maintained that satellite operators must meet the applicable regulatory and security requirements. Recent reporting indicates that the regulatory position involves more than a simple dispute between Starlink and Reliance Jio.

Let us be clear: India must not allow any domestic business group to manipulate regulations to protect its commercial interests. Fair competition is essential. If Starlink meets the same legitimate requirements as its competitors, it should receive fair consideration. Meanwhile, the reverse is also equally important. A foreign entrepreneur cannot assume that questioning a country's regulatory decisions will compel that country to change its policies. Nor does a company's global reputation entitle it to preferential treatment.

Any organisation’s business achievements do not place them above scrutiny. Nor do the commercial successes of Indian industrialists. The issue should not be whether Musk wins or Ambani wins. The issue should be whether India and its citizens benefit. That is the standard by which the decision must be judged.

Do global powers always practise what they preach?: Countries frequently advocate free markets, open competition and globalisation while protecting domestic industries when they consider it strategically necessary. The USA, for example, has imposed restrictions on Chinese EV and other strategic imports. Its approach illustrates how national security, industrial policy and trade protection can influence market access even in economies that champion free enterprise. International positions on trade, energy and geopolitical conflicts also evolve as governments reassess their interests. Western governments have criticised India's purchases of Russian oil while their own policies and commercial dealings have reflected changing economic and strategic calculations.

The details of these policies differ, and not every inconsistency proves hypocrisy. The lesson is worth remembering: international relations are rarely governed by economic principles alone. National interests matter.If other countries can scrutinise foreign technology, protect strategic industries and impose conditions on market access, why should India be expected to behave differently? Why should India be criticised merely for asking questions that other governments routinely ask? Why should we assume that a foreign company's commercial interests necessarily coincide with India's national interests? We should neither distrust every foreign company nor blindly trust every foreign promise. We should evaluate each proposal on its merits.

Self-reliance does not mean isolation: Self-reliance does not mean refusing foreign investment, rejecting international collaboration or pretending that domestic technology is always superior. India has benefited enormously from global trade, foreign investment, technological partnerships and competition. Nor should domestic companies receive automatic protection merely because they are Indian.

Self-reliance means having the capability to make informed choices without becoming excessively dependent on external suppliers for critical services. It means developing Indian expertise, strengthening domestic research and manufacturing, investing in our own satellite and telecommunications capabilities, and ensuring that strategic decisions remain under India's lawful control. It also means allowing foreign companies to compete fairly when they can offer better technology, better service or better value.

The objective is not to shut the door on Starlink. The objective is to ensure that the door is opened for the right reasons, under the right conditions and in India's interest.

What should India's approach be?: Let us derive a sensible policy on 5 principles:

1. Prioritise the connectivity gap. Identify locations where terrestrial broadband is unavailable, unreliable or uneconomical. Satellite connectivity should be encouraged where it provides a demonstrable advantage
2. Put affordability at the centre. Compare the total cost of satellite broadband with mobile and fibre alternatives. Where public funds or subsidies are involved, demand measurable public benefits
3. Protect national security. Apply clear requirements covering lawful access, operational accountability, data governance and emergency response, consistent with applicable law
4. Ensure fair competition. Domestic operators must not receive unfair advantages, and foreign operators must not receive special concessions. The rules should be transparent and consistently applied
5. Strengthen India's own capabilities. Continue investing in terrestrial networks, domestic satellite technology, research, manufacturing and resilient communications infrastructure.

This is not anti-Starlink. It is pro-India.

Conclusion: Technology must serve the nation, not the other way around India does not have to prove that it is modern by adopting every technology offered by a global billionaire. Nor does it have to reject a useful technology simply because it comes from abroad. We must distinguish between a genuine need and a commercially attractive opportunity. We must distinguish between competition and pressure. We must distinguish between technological progress and technological dependence.

If Starlink can solve a problem that existing networks cannot solve adequately, let it compete fairly and demonstrate its value. If it cannot offer a compelling advantage to the average Indian consumer, there is no reason to treat its arrival as a national imperative.

The same principle should apply to every company, whether Indian or foreign, large or small. India should be open to the world, confident in its capabilities and uncompromising about its national interests. Self-reliance is not a rejection of the world. It is the ability to engage with the world from a position of strength. That is a far better ambition than simply adding another global brand to our list of technological achievements.

PIC: AI generated based on inputs from me.

SIR - Protests and the Question We Should Really Be Asking

 

SIR - Protests and the Question We Should Really Be Asking

Once again ,India is witnessing political protests, this time, over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. This is not a new activity but keeps happening at a regular cadence. The political temperature is rising, allegations are flying, and the Election Commission of India is being accused of attempting to manipulate the electoral process.

Revision of electoral rolls is a routine process and has happened many times in the past too. When electoral rolls are revised, the real issue should not be who vociferous (shouts the loudest) is, but whether every genuine voter gets a fair opportunity to vote. At the centre of the controversy is a dramatic number: around 13 crore names allegedly being deleted from electoral rolls. However, before we accept such a statement, perhaps we should pause and ask a simple question: Are 13 crore genuine, eligible and living voters actually being denied their right to vote?

Numbers can create headlines. Evidence should create conclusions.

People should understand/ realise that a large number appearing in a voter-roll revision does not automatically mean that an equal number of legitimate voters have been disenfranchised. Political parties, too should behave responsibly. Anarchy might get attention but will not help them go far. Indeed, during the Bihar SIR exercise, the Election Commission reported categories including deceased electors, duplicate registrations, permanently migrated or untraceable electors, and electors whose enumeration forms had not been returned. The Commission also provided mechanisms for claims and objections. It also involved almost all the political parties through their Booth Level Agents. When all the parties were involved, why they are protesting now and have not acted earlier? 

Electoral rolls inevitably accumulate errors over a period of time. People die, families migrate, People get registered in more than one constituency,  addresses change, names and other details may be entered differently, some people move permanently without updating their electoral registration, some people simply may not respond to a verification exercise. The list can go long. Hence, the headline number of names not appearing in a draft roll should not by itself be presented as the number of genuine voters who have been deliberately removed.

There is an important distinction between “13 crore names are not presently on the revised roll” and “13 crore genuine voters have been illegally disenfranchised.” The first is a question of electoral-roll data. The second is a very serious allegation. The second requires evidence. This does not mean that every concern about SIR should be dismissed. Leaving out a genuine voter, even it is in small number, is a concern. The right to vote is not just another administrative entitlement, It is one of the most fundamental mechanisms through which a citizen participates in a democracy.

Hence, the Election Commission must hold a high standard. The process should be:

• Transparent

• Verifiable

• Accessible

• Time-bound

• Capable of correcting mistakes

The Supreme Court's scrutiny of the process is, therefore, not something that should be viewed as an attack on the Election Commission. Although few of its observations are unwarranted and quite sensational. It is precisely how democratic institutions are expected to work - allegations are examined, procedures are tested and mistakes—if established—are corrected.

The Court has already examined the legal basis and proportionality of SIR in the context of Bihar, while the wider controversy continues to generate judicial scrutiny. That is a healthy institutional process. There is, however, an interesting question that deserves much greater public attention. If the political claim is that millions of genuine voters have been removed, where is the corresponding evidence from those voters themselves?

Where are the constituency-wise lists of genuine electors who claim that their names are deleted but say:

• I am alive

• I am eligible to vote

• I have lived at this address

• I have voted in this election from this booth at this constituency

• My name was on the electoral roll

• My name has now disappeared

• Here is my proof

Such cases should not merely be discussed at political rallies. They should be documented. They should be independently verified. They should be presented constituency by constituency. If lakhs or crores of such genuine cases exist, the Election Commission should have to address them. That would be a far more powerful democratic argument than a political slogan.

While this is said there is another aspect that deserves attention. All of us should realise that the responsibility does not lie only with the Election Commission. Electoral democracy is a shared responsibility. The Election Commission has the responsibility to prepare an accurate electoral roll. However, the citizens too, have a responsibility to ensure that their electoral details are correct. 

Political parties have an even greater responsibility. Every major political party has workers, booth-level organisations and representatives on the ground. If a genuine voter is missing from the electoral roll, political parties have the organisational capability to identify such cases, help the voter submit the appropriate claim and follow it through.

The ECI's own process provides mechanisms for eligible electors who have been left out to submit claims and for objections to be raised against ineligible entries. Its current voter portal and their user-friendly app also provides facilities to search electoral rolls and submit relevant forms. Thus, perhaps the most constructive political response is to audit the process rather than politicise every number.

Imagine if every political party were to jointly undertake a simple exercise. Take every constituency where substantial numbers of names have disappeared. Divide the cases into categories:

• Deceased voters

• Duplicate registrations

• Permanently migrated voters

• Untraceable voters

• Voters who did not submit the required form

• Genuine voters who were wrongly excluded

Then independently verify the last category. If the numbers are insignificant, the political allegations lose credibility. If the numbers are substantial, the Election Commission has a serious problem to correct. Either way, India wins. That is what a mature democracy should be doing.

The reported differences of opinion among Election Commissioners have also become part of the political controversy. However, disagreement within a constitutional body is not, by itself, proof of wrongdoing. In fact, differences of opinion can be perfectly normal in any serious institution. The Election Commission itself has stated that operational queries and differing views are part of the deliberative process and that final decisions were taken unanimously. The correct response, therefore, is neither to dismiss the differences as meaningless nor to automatically interpret them as evidence of electoral fraud. The sensible response is: Make the decision-making process transparent. Transparency removes suspicion far more effectively than political arguments do.

Protest is a democratic right. But protest should produce evidence and should not be throwing spokes on the wheels of rest of the affairs. There is nothing inherently wrong with political protests. Indeed, the right to protest is an essential feature of democracy. Opposition parties have every right to question the government and the Election Commission but there is a difference between raising a question and declaring the answer. The burden should be on anyone making such a serious allegation to substantiate it. If evidence emerges, it must be taken seriously—irrespective of which political party benefits or loses.

One worrying trend in Indian politics is the increasing tendency to treat every institutional disagreement as an existential battle. Election results are questioned, Electronic Voting machines are questioned, Electoral rolls are questioned, Election Commissioners are questioned, Courts are questioned, Governments are questioned and this list goes on. We should be careful about turning issues into permanent warfare.

Questioning is healthy, but when every disagreement becomes an accusation of conspiracy, public trust itself becomes the casualty. A democracy cannot function if citizens are persuaded that every institution is corrupt whenever the political outcome is unfavourable to them. Nor can democracy function if citizens are expected to accept every decision of an institution without questioning it. The answer lies somewhere in between: Trust—but verify, Question—but substantiate, Protest—but provide evidence, Correct—but do not politicise correction.

Instead of competing to organise bigger protests, political parties should compete to identify genuine voters who have been wrongly excluded. Provide evidence, build trust.  Instead of treating the Election Commission as either completely infallible or completely compromised, we could demand that it operate with maximum transparency. 

Let us emphasise on “My vote counts – before counting of votes”

The  objective would be simple that none should disagree with:

1. No dead or duplicate voter should remain on the roll

2. No genuine voter should be left out

The SIR controversy should therefore not become another chapter in India's endless political confrontation. It should become an opportunity to strengthen our electoral system. If there are mistakes, correct them. If procedures are unnecessarily complicated, simplify them.

If the political parties have evidence of deliberate manipulation, they should present it before the appropriate constitutional and judicial forums. But until allegations are supported by evidence, allegations should remain allegations—not become accepted facts through repetition. India's democracy is too important to be reduced to a contest over who can organise the largest protest or make the loudest accusation.

Can every eligible Indian citizen vote—and can every vote be trusted? – This is the question worth protesting for. That is the question not only worth investigating but worth answering.

India’s poor performance at the Asian Games: Who Is Really Responsible?

 

India’s poor performance at the Asian Games: Who Is Really Responsible?

We have the population. We have the talent. We have the money. So what is stopping India from becoming a sporting powerhouse?

There is something uncomfortable about India's performance at the 2026 Asian Games. Not because Indian athletes have failed but because India has still not converted its enormous potential into a reliable sporting system. As the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games enter their final phase, India has been around 12th in the medal table, with 45 medals as of September 29th. This is a significant drop from the 107 medals India won at Hangzhou in 2023, when India finished fourth.

The obvious question is: Who is responsible for this debacle? The Government? The Sports Ministry? The Indian Olympic Association? The National Sports Federations? The coaches? The athletes? The infrastructure? Our sporting culture? Or, as some may crudely suggest, are Indians simply not capable of competing at the highest level?

The problem is not the Indian athlete. Perhaps, it is the Indian sporting ecosystem. If we want to fix it, we must be honest about who is accountable for which part of that ecosystem.

It is not good to indulge in blaming so, let us get into the facts. Every sporting competition contains winners, losers, mistakes and surprises. Winning and losing is a part and parcel of a sport. For example, India's Manu Bhaker, despite being a double Olympic medallist, returned empty handed from four shooting events in Aichi-Nagoya. India's shooting campaign also produced several agonising near-misses. This does not make them poor athletes. The same athlete who can win Olympic medals can have an unsuccessful tournament. Performance variation is part of sport, however, inconsistency cannot.

When an entire sporting ecosystem repeatedly produces inconsistent results, we have to look beyond individual athletes. Here is where accountability begins. Hence, who is responsible? Everyone has a role—but not everyone carries the same responsibility. Let us try to accommodate the accountability into six layers.

The Government — It is responsible for the ecosystem. It cannot run every sport however, it can create the conditions in which sports can flourish. It controls or substantially influences:

• Sports policy
• Funding
• Infrastructure
• Athlete-support schemes
• Sports education
• Talent identification
• Governance regulations
• Federation recognition
• International-event preparation
• Sports science and research
• Grassroots programmes

No doubt, this Govt increased its investment and institutional support. Schemes such as TOPS have helped create an elite-support structure. The Ministry's own data shows that TOPS has been used to support a selected group of elite and developmental athletes. However, here lies an important distinction – “Funding elite athletes is not the same as creating elite athletes.”

TOPS can support a champion. It cannot, by itself, create the 10-year pathway that produces the next champion. We need to ask:

• Where was that athlete five, ten or fifteen years before entering TOPS?
• Who discovered the child?
• Who developed the physical attributes?
• Who provided the coach?
• Who provided the competition?
• Who identified the weakness?
• Who provided sports psychology?
• Who prevented injury?
• Who created the pathway from school → district → state → national → international?

These are the bigger questions the Government has to answer.

Sports Federations — perhaps the biggest accountability gap is here. A federation should exist for the sport and the athlete. Not the other way around. Yet Indian sport has repeatedly experienced disputes over selection, governance, recognition, elections, administration and competing factions. In 2026, disputes surrounding National Sports Federations have already affected athletes' preparation and participation. Reports have documented governance problems involving federations including handball and karate. Courts recorded their observations over selection processes and recognition mechanism. 

These are highly unacceptable. Imagine preparing for four years for an Asian Games and then discovering that the organisation responsible for your sport cannot decide on who is eligible to represent India?  An athlete cannot solve this problem nor the coach. We cannot expect the Govt to solve every dispute. However, the federation must resolve such issues. Sports administration should be treated as a profession. Running a national sports federation requires knowledge of:

• high-performance sport
• athlete development
• sports science
• competition planning
• finance
• governance
• international rules
• sponsorship
• technology
• safeguarding sports personnel
• performance analytics

It should not primarily be about who controls an organisation. The athlete should be the customer of the sporting system—not the victim of it.

The Sports Ministry and Government agencies are accountable for execution. The Government can legitimately say: "We have increased funding,” however, this is not the end. Instead, it starts from here. The important question is: What did the money produce?

Did it produce:

• more international-standard coaches?
• more competitive athletes?
• more youth champions?
• better injury prevention?
• better sports science?
• better nutrition?
• stronger leagues?
• better facilities beyond major cities?
• measurable improvement in international rankings?

Money spent is input. Medals are output. I would mention that even medals are not enough. The real KPI should be: How many sustainable high-performance athletes are we producing every Olympic cycle? 

India needs to move from a medal-centric model to a pipeline-centric model.

Coaches and high-performance professionals — a forgotten link. We often talk about athletes. We talk about federations. We talk about Government funding. However,  world-class sport is ultimately a high-performance engineering problem. The athlete is the output. Behind that athlete should be a team involving:

• coach
• strength & conditioning specialist
• physiotherapist
• sports physician
• nutritionist
• psychologist
• biomechanics expert
• performance analyst
• recovery specialist

India is improving in this area, but the depth of the ecosystem remains uneven. The Sports Ministry itself has recently emphasised the need to develop a stronger indigenous coaching ecosystem and provide international exposure to Indian coaches. That is important.

Because importing a foreign coach for an elite athlete is not the same as building 10,000 Indian coaches capable of developing the next generation.

The athletes — yes, they too must accept accountability. Defending athletes from systemic failures should not mean treating athletes as untouchable. Elite athletes have responsibilities too. At the highest level, talent is only the entry ticket. An athlete must be accountable for:

• discipline
• training
• nutrition
• recovery
• preparation
• competition behaviour
• continuous learning
• physical conditioning
• mental preparation
• adherence to anti-doping rules

And occasionally, an athlete simply underperforms. That happens. We should be able to say: "You had a poor performance today." without saying: "You are a poor athlete." That distinction matters.

Indian society - Do we really want to become a sporting nation? We say yes. However, what happens when an Indian child says: "I want to become an athlete." The typical answers we get are:

• "First finish your studies" 
• "Sports is fine as a hobby"
• "What will you do for a career?"
• "Sports is risky"

The Parents are not wrong. What are the motivating factors available today to choose sports as a career? A job quota that has got stagnation? Career life in Sports is short and post that – what is in store? If the career is not successful, what are the other options to survive? 

Until relatively recently, for most Indian families, a sporting career was an uncertain economic proposition. Cricket changed that perception however, it also created another problem. We have demonstrated that Indians can become world-class athletes—but disproportionately in one sport.

The question is not: Why don't Indians have sporting talent? (we have a lot) The question is: Why does talent outside cricket struggle to find a reliable economic and professional pathway?

Then how China does it? - China is not simply a country with more talented athletes. It has built a much deeper sporting system. China's approach has historically involved: talent identification → specialised training → institutional support → sports schools → elite coaching → sports science → international competition → systematic selection.

China also targets sports strategically. That is an important lesson.

An Asian Games medal table is not simply a contest between populations. It is a contest between sporting systems. India has 1.4+ billion people and so is China. So population alone cannot explain the difference. The more useful question is: How effectively does each country convert population into sporting talent? That is totally a different metric.

The next question is: what about smaller countries? This is where India should pay particular attention. A country does not need China's population to succeed. Smaller countries can become disproportionately successful when they concentrate on sports where they have:

• cultural depth
• coaching expertise
• physiological advantages
• historical strength
• infrastructure
• strong talent pipelines

The lesson is not: "Copy China." One should never do that.  It is: Choose; Focus; Build depth; Repeat. India cannot realistically become world-class in every sport simultaneously.

What about infrastructure? – India has stadiums. The problem is: Where are those facilities, who can access them, and how are they used? A magnificent stadium that hosts an event twice a year does not create champions. A functional training centre used 300 days a year by thousands of children might. This is where initiatives such as Khelo India matter. The infrastructure should be measured by utilisation and athlete outcomes, not simply by the number of facilities inaugurated.

There is another problem: we sometimes confuse "event management" with "sports development" India has become increasingly capable of hosting major sporting events. Hosting an event and developing athletes are two different capabilities. One can build a magnificent stadium in three years but cannot build a world-class athlete in three years. That requires 10–15 years of continuity.

That means governments, federations and coaches must think beyond the next tournament. Then, what should India do?

Create a 15-year athlete pipeline: Let us not prepare for Los Angeles 2028 (this is also required but focus should be long term). We should be focussing on: "Who are our 2032, 2036 and 2040 athletes?" Identify them early; Track them; Develop them; Protect them. Make federations professionally accountable.

Every federation should have measurable KPIs - Not just meetings, but number of athletes in world ranking, international medals, youth to senior conversion, injury rates, coach development, participation levels, selection transparency, to name a few. The most important factor is: A poor governance should have consequences.

Build a national sports-data platform: Every serious athlete should have a longitudinal performance record. Imagine being able to track: age → physical development → competition results → injury history → technical weaknesses → training load → international ranking → progression. That would turn sports development into a data-driven process rather than an annual selection exercise.

Make schools the real talent mine: India has millions of schools. That is our biggest sporting infrastructure. Every school does not need an Olympic stadium but every child should have access to Athletics, swimming, gymnastics, wrestling, boxing, badminton, football, basketball, volleyball shooting  and wherever  feasible indigenous sports. Talent identification should start there.

Success doesn’t mean only Medals: This is critical. Suppose India wins 100 medals in one Asian Games and 40 in the next. Does this mean a system collapse? Not necessarily. Maybe the first 100 included an exceptional generation. The better question is: How many competitive athletes are we producing continuously? A mature sporting nation should have depth. If one athlete retires, three others should be ready.

Create economic security for athletes: This may be the biggest cultural intervention. If a talented 14-year-old knows that becoming an elite athlete can eventually provide: education, income, insurance, employment opportunities, retirement security, professional recognition etc., then the parents will be far more willing to support the sporting journey. Sport must become a career, not a gamble.

Hold everyone accountable: This is perhaps the most important change. Let us not fire a coach because an athlete lost. Let us not blame an athlete because a federation failed. Let us not blame the Government for every lost point. Most importantly, let us not allow federations to hide behind the phrase: "Sports is unpredictable." The statement is partially right. Sport is unpredictable but Systems are not

More than hosting a Olympics event, India should focus on:  Can India build a sporting ecosystem worthy of hosting the Olympics? Because there is an important distinction: Hosting the Olympics is an event. Becoming an Olympic sporting nation is a system. India should pursue both—but the latter is far more important.

Let us get back to the old question: “Why did India perform so poorly?" India still depend heavily on exceptional individuals instead of exceptional systems. Exceptional athletes should emerge from an exceptional system. When one champion retires, another should already be coming through. That is what China has demonstrated. That is what smaller sporting nations have demonstrated.

This  what India needs to build. India does not lack talent. India does not lack ambition. India does not lack money. India does not even lack examples of excellence. What India lacks is consistency of execution across the entire sporting value chain. Execution is an accountability issue. 

Let us rephrase our question: "Who is accountable for building the next 1,000 champions—and what will we measure them on?" In all fairness, this should be the conversation India should be having before it talks about hosting the Olympics. Let us build a sporting pipeline before we host the biggest sporting event. 

All the best! 

AI Generated image based inputs provided from my side.