No scam: Only admission form sought

While the LSE denied Scott’s claim today saying that it was utter rubbish, Ashwini Kumar said it is an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy to tarnish the image of members from the Third World.

“Those close to the IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch are being targeted. They are throwing mud on us,” Kumar, life member of the IOC, told The Indian Express today. “I have had a distinguished career in sports administration. I’m an IOCmember for the past 26 years. And I’m not going to take this lying down.”

Kumar clarified on the alleged “help.” “As for my daughter’s admission, the report says that I took help’ from Sir Robert Scott. Yes, I took his help and that was in getting an admission form from the institute, that’s all. My daughter took the exams, cleared it and I paid the money for her admission fortunately, through the Reserve Bank of India. The records can be checked. Where is the bribe?” Kumar fumed.

Kumar also said that the Scott family were “close friends” since the time Sir Robert’s father served in the British High Commission in Delhi. “My daughter’s admission was no way linked to the Manchester bid. It is a mere coincidence that Scott was chairman of that bid and happened to be known to my family,” Kumar said.

A spokesperson for the LSE said that it had indeed received a query from Sir Roger Scott, on the IOC letterhead inquiring about admission procedures. She said, the inquiry was treated as any otheradmission inquiry. “It is not unusual for people living in Britain to make inquiries for prospective (overseas) students .. everyone is given the same information.”

The spokesperson said: “He was told what the entry requirements were.. that she would have to complete the application requirement and the degree she was doing in India.” The spokesperson said Kumar’s daughter received “very good references from her college in Delhi and together with her Indian degree” she qualified for an admission for a diploma in the International Relations department.

Admission requirements for foreign students, especially in the softer’ short courses have fallen in recent years. This is because paying foreign students are effectively cash cows for universities, which have faced sever funding cuts in recent years.

Foreign Students (non-EU) fees are, on an average double that for local students. In 1993-94, a local student would have paid 2,260 pounds for a diploma from the LSE, and a foreign student would havepaid a whopping 6,990 pounds. This year the differential is 5,514 pounds to 9,047 pounds, for a one-year diploma.

Sandeep Kapur of Birkbeck College, University of London says: “Almost every university in the last 10 years has set up non-degree courses, not requiring high academic qualification, to attract fee-paying foreign students in search for foreign qualifications you would not need doors opened’ for an admission to such a course.

Uma Kambhampati at the University of Reading agrees. She says: “Diplomas do not have very high entry requirements.. and certainly for a student paying their own way from a good Indian university, with good references there would be no question of opening doors”.

This is not the first time that Kumar’s name is being dragged into the IOC scandal. An agency report had said that Ashwini Kumar was offered sexual favours in Amsterdam in 1986, but had refused Two African members were accused of having accepted such favours. Kumar had told The Indian Express then, that “nosexual offers were made and it was mere kite flying.”