[Carol]

Consumerism in todays times has become a way of life. Advertising being a means to fulfil unsaid and unrealised dreams. It depends hugely on the influence a consumer has from his surroundings and peers. The risk taking ability increases when he is cajoled into buying things inspite of his limited means and paying ability. Clearly, this external influence majorly being advertising has led to high sale of consumer goods in today’s society.

If we deep dive into the reasons why advertising has made all the difference, it would not be wrong to reiterate that the ad-world has become more conducive for popular TV personalities, celebrities who because of their endorsement of a certain product bring about a tsunami of product enquiries and resultant sales. Starting from mobile phones to toothpaste, every commodity comes with its own brand ambassador and if the person feels inspired or connected with that celebrity, a confirmed sale is a given.

In addition to the star power, advertising has allowed display of products from across the globe at the click of a button. Brands like Tim Hortens, IKEA which were only associated to countries like Canada and America, today because of their presence in India have seen a catapulting demand for all off-shore type of goods and designs which earlier were limited to international markets only. If it were not for advertising, the foreign investment of all international manufacturers in a closed market like India would not have been possible.

Consumers are being driven by the advertising slogans these days much more than the utility they might have had of a product in real. Having said that, we can only talk about the positive impact advertising has had in the overall sales. The advent of consumerism has helped economies to scale up productions, invite foreign investments and not to forget create income and jobs in the economic machinery.

[Carol]

India being a land of the warriors, competitiveness is second nature to every Indian. I most definitely understand the need and the requirement on a national level to host such sports events which can have it own set of positives and negatives. However , we aim to highlight both aspects of this communal activity as a large section of any country associates to the national games whether held domestically or internationally. I partially am in favour of hosting international sports events.

The propensity of any country to agree to host such international sports events does not only show the governments audacity but also manier times inability to garner support of the majority. The economic play involved in this game of power can galvanise negative reviews for any effective minister, political party, country. The simple reason being, the expense which may look like a government contribution at first eventually gets deflected to the citizens of that country by way of increased taxes, lower FD interest rates, slow GDP growth.

Contrary to popular belief, there is a section of society that supports sports, for the love of game and the competitiveness that may be condoned at times by the leftists. Not to deny the fact, that such events put the country on an international pedestal and the amount of accolades, fame and glory received in return does more good than bad in the larger scheme of things. In the process, the city where such events are held becomes a tourist attraction for many. Infrastructurally the development that is seen for example, newly built highways, state of art stadiums, refurbished guest houses and much more that this entails after the event is over leaves the city dolled up. The best example would be the Delhi Common Wealth Games Village that was developed- CWG 2010. The facilities and infrastructure still is a site to wonder and admire. The effort gone behind putting up the show is evident in the scale of operations it must have required and is a tourist destination for many foreigners.

I would like to summarise my thoughts by saying that every country and its people have a right to decide what is best for the nation. As some would support valour, few would disagree as it does come at a huge financial cost.