The word `about' was used mainly because there really is no one -- either in the ministry or the IOA -- who can give a correct figure of how many have been actually cleared by the government and for how many the IOA will pick up the tab. Managers have not been cleared by the Government, but their respective federations or the IOA will pay for them, and many sportspersons who have been cleared ``at no cost to the government'' are still looking for `sponsors' to pick up the tab. While IOA will take care of some; some others will rely on their federations or employers and some may even `pay forthemselves'. Have money, will represent India.

India will be taking part in 21 of the 36 disciplines at the Games. The women's football will be a first-time experience, while the men footballers get a chance to go back to the Asian Games after 12 years.

This huge figure was possibly surpassed only when India had hosted the Games -- in 1951 and 1982 -- and in 1986 when 400 and more went to the disastrous campaign in Seoul. After much hullabaloo, the football team will go as the IOA and the All India Football Federation desired but the tab will be picked up by the IOA. The same goes for the volleyball side. The reason according to the IOA president, Suresh Kalmadi is that the apex body feels India have ``medal chance'' in at least one and the other team needs ``exposure''.

In football, India are placed in a pool that has Japan and Nepal with top two teams going into the next stage. The reasoning behind sending men's football team, according to Kalmadi, is that the team needs international exposure in viewof the 2001 Afro-Asian Games to be hosted by India and in which soccer is one of the disciplines.

As for volleyball, India are clubbed with hosts Thailand and Lebanon with the top team going into the semi-finals.

If exposure for the future and getting into the next stage were among the criteria, a lot of sportspersons left back have ample to crib about.IOA also `helped' in a diplomatic move by getting two warring factions of Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India to sit together, have trials and put together a team. So India will participate indeed in the only that sport that has fetched it a gold in last two Asian Games.

Diplomacy, IOA style

It is the only discipline in which India have won gold medals at the last two Asian Games. Three years ago, it was close to being dropped from the Asian Games programme till the Indian Olympic Association, at the behest of the Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India, lobbied hard with the Olympic Council of Asia -- that Randhir Singh, secretary of the IOA is alsothe secretary-general of the OCA helped -- and managed to get it back on the programme.

And then the federation split, until yesterday evening. the IOA threatened to drop the team from the contingent. The threat worked. The Presidents of the two factions -- JS Gehlot and Kuldip Singh Vats -- got ``their representatives'' to sit together. The two coaches, reportedly one each from both factions, SP Singh and Ashan Kumar and politician Ajay Sarnaik, the deputy chef-de-mission, and Col GA Siddique, who has been selected as manager, sat down and ``selected'' the team.

Suresh Kalmadi's comment: ``The IOA managed to bring the two factions together and best team was chosen.'' The IOA maintains that the ``best players'' from both factions have been chosen!

The players' view: ``The team has been made, but it is hardly the best, since some players had to be adjusted from either faction for the compromise to work.''

So, that's diplomacy, IOA style.