The modern thinking Indian

Labels: Cheering for Pakistan, Cricket, Cricket match, India, Sedition, Sports, Supporting Pakistan, Treason

Maybe the name should be changed to that of the NRI Premiere League now; given that more NRI's will now be watching the match live at the ground rather than Indians. Last year, the Indian Premier League (after initial criticism of the high costs involved), turned into a spectacular crowd fest, with huge audience participation. The T-20 cricket tournament was a huge TV success, to the extent that movie makers were reluctant to release movies in the same time frame. So, when the cricket tournament was planned for the second run this year, there was a wide spread anticipation that the tournament would be even bigger and more spectacular this year.
And then the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan, the neighboring country where attacks by militants are common. The attack was the first manifestation that radical elements were starting to attack the popular game of cricket; the first reaction was to lay out the differences between India and Pakistan in term of security and to emphasize that playing of the game was safe in India. One does not want the perception that the security situation in India is so bad that the Government cannot ensure security for international sportspersons. After all, the Commonwealth Games are planned for 2010, and security is one of the critical points.
However, it soon became clear that the Government did not really care about this logic; the argument that was becoming clear was that holding the IPL in India would not lend anything positive to the Government; however, if any security incident happened during this duration, the BJP would pounce upon the incident as another symptom of the Government being soft on terror; so the apparent simpler option was to get various Congress states to announce that they could not arrange for the proper security of the event. Here is an extract from an article that criticizes the action by the Government of India (link to article):

In the course of just one successful season, IPL had become one of the biggest global brands, comparable to Wimbledon and the football World Cup. An outpouring of meanness drove the Nano plant out of West Bengal. Last week, P Chidambaram donned the mantle of Mamata Banerjee and forced IPL out of India. Like Mamata, who felt that Ratan Tata could be browbeaten because he was a hostage to money already invested in Singur, North Block proceeded on the assumption that the IPL was a helpless captive. And just as Tata had to cut his losses and resist blackmail politics, Lalit Modi inveigled IPL out of a desperate situation with a daredevil flight to South Africa.
It is more than a little curious that the IPL faced resistance only from the Congress-ruled states. It was the firm no from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi that finally clinched the issue in favour of South Africa. In Delhi, where policing is under the direct purview of the Centre, even chief minister Sheila Dikshit was in favour of hosting matches. Yet, the police chief informed her and Delhi Cricket Association president Arun Jaitley that no permission would be forthcoming before, during and after the polling. As far as the Centre was concerned, IPL could go to hell.

There are multiple reasons why the Congress could have done this. The Congress is not particularly happy with Sharad Pawar, and even less so with Lalit Modi, and would have thought that the IPL would have to be postponed; however, the move to take the IPL out of the country was not something that the Congress liked either. So when the IPL move out of India was announced on security considerations, the Government criticized the move as trying to play politics with sports, and so on. Strange objection, given that the reason that the IPL could not be held as per schedule was that the games were supposed to be clashing with elections and that no forces could be spared for the games (the country cannot arrange for enough security to cover an event such as IPL when the elections are going on ? What happens if something serious take place on the Pakistan border ? Where will the required forces be found then ?)

Labels: BJP, Congress, Cricket, Image, India, Politics, Security

For decades, the Indian Government and the legal system has been lopsided in favour of tenants, with the Rent Control Act being one-sided to protect tenants. The Act has reduced property rights, not letting landlords get their property back when they need the property for their own use, and not letting them raise rents in accordance with annual inflation trends. The Rent Control Act has scared landlords so much that there are many property owners who cannot envisage letting out their currently vacant properties for fear of not getting these properties back, or who let out properties on 11 month leases and get them vacated within 2 years so that properties do not get tenants who refuse to let go.
This situation had prevented the healthy growth of the market for tenancy and led to an artificial scarcity; so there was a great jubilation among property owners when the law was weakened some time back; the change allowed landlords to get their property back when they could demonstrate that they needed the property for their own needs, however, this was only for residential properties. Commercial properties were excluded. So you had the case where prime properties in commercial centers such as Connaught Place were on rent for decades old rentals of Rs. 100 per month; the landlord could only watch as their properties were used by tenants to make big money and they themselves got a pittance as rent. This would lead to a situation where the landlords would not invest anything on maintenance for these buildings. Finally the Supreme Court has corrected this, letting owners of commercial properties evict their tenants when they could prove that they needed the building:

For 50 years, tenants in shops and commercial premises in many prime areas of Delhi have had the upper hand over landlords. They lived without fear of eviction and paid a paltry rent as they were protected by laws that froze the amount negotiated decades ago. This special protection was because the law said that a tenant could be asked to vacate only residential premises, and not commercial property even if the premises were required for personal use. But all this has changed.
The court said the restriction on eviction of tenants from commercial premises was inserted in the law 50 years ago mainly because of the limited commercial space available in the city at that time. But that was a long time back. Now the scenario has undergone a sea change and a fairly large number of buildings and premises were now available on rent for non-residential and commercial purposes. Restricting landlords from seeking eviction of tenants from shops was no longer justified, the Bench said.

This is a judgment that was long awaited by landlords. There is no equitable reason why a landlord cannot get his / her property back when they need it. This judgment does not go all the way, given that it still does not give a way for a landlord to get rents raised to reflect current prices; one byproduct of this judgment however will be that landlords will try whatever tactic that they can to show that they need this property for their personal use and get the tenants evicted.

Labels: Cricket, Judicial, Law, Neighbourhood, Property, Reform

We have an obsession with cricket in this country. It is the most popular game, and maybe there are valid reasons for that. It has been marketed wonderfully, and people's involvement in the game has been raised to such a high degree that when the finals of the Twenty-Twenty were taking place in South Africa, the roads in Delhi were deserted, and for the next 2-3 days, the newspapers had major sections covering the event. The players were heroes, welcomed by the state government on arrival in Mumbai, with the BCCI doling out large sums of money to the players. Now, so far, the BCCI is a body for cricket, and it can give awards. But the Government has to appear broad-based and fair to all sports, and yet we know that is such a fiction. So, we have the hockey players, who won the Asia Cup when no one expected, protesting against the doling out of money to the players by State Governments.

Irked by the step-motherly treatment meted out to the Indian hockey players by the central and four state governments, when compared to the sops given to cricketers after their win in the Twenty20 World Cup, the team members have decided to go on a 'hunger strike'.
National Chief Coach, Joaquim Carvalho strongly objected to the announcement of cash awards by the Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and the state governments of Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Karnataka to the cricketers while ignoring the victory of his wards in the Asian Continental Championship early this month.

This is a perfectly valid argument. It may seem that the hockey players are being jealous, but the fact remains that the Government has no business giving cash gifts to players of one game, and totally ignoring the others. And that too for cricket, where neither the players nor the board require any form of support from the Government. It is other sports, suffering under abysmal conditions, without sponsorship, and with very little money (as demonstrated in the hit movie 'Chak de') that need Government support. But then who ever said that the Government made sense.

Labels: Cricket, Development, Governance, Sports, Support, Welfare

The last World Cup broke a number of reputations. While the dismal performance of the Indian team turned away a number of people (including me) from being cricket fans to not being so interested in cricket, it also broke a number of taboos. The prime one was the breaking of the taboo of not criticizing Sachin. Sachin Tendulkar has been the god-like figure of the Indian cricket for the last decade and more, and without doubt, he has a been like a colossus on the Indian cricket scene. But, given the injuries that he has been facing, and the general slow-down in his performance has been noticed and commented upon a lot. In fact, his performance and public acclaim has been reduced to the extent that former cricketers such as Atul Wassan and Maninder Singh, not batsmen of any acclaim, have criticized Tendulkar as part of their job of commenting.
Over a period of time, even though Sachin was setting an incredible number of batting records, there were people who were carping about his abilities. And in the past 5 years, the criticism has only grown. He has been accused of not actually being able to deliver wins to India, and failing when he is most needed. And the latest person to make this accusation is none other than another great from Indian cricket, Kapil Dev:

"Every time people hope big things from Sachin Tendulkar but often it is only disappointment that we are left with. He is thought to be the backbone of the Indian team but many times he has not stood up to the ocassion," he said.
"Figures say that Sachin has not been able to perform uunder pressure. This will remain a blot in his career," Kapil Dev said.
"Sachin has big records to his name but until he wins matches for India in these conditions, people will raise fingers at him," Kapil said.

I can agree with Kapil to some extent. For a generation, Sachin has provided inspiration, but greats need to know when to gracefully bow out. After all, new blood can only come in when old blood makes its way out; even if that means admitting that a great has faded and should maybe make his exit rather than reach a stage where people ask for him to go out.
Of course, people will have multiple opinions on this, including ascribing ulterior motives to Kapil Dev for his utterances. After all, he is now trying to get people to join an alternative cricket league, and one way to do that is to create controversies.

Labels: Cricket, Fan, Responsibility

Labels: Cricket, Image, India, Sharing

So finally Greg Chappell resigns as coach of the Indian cricket team. His tenure saw a lot of ups and downs for the team, culimnating in the truly disastrous performance of the team during the World Cup. Not sure whether this is good or bad for Indian cricket as a whole.
His has a been remarkable tenure of 22 months; starting with great promise, and ending in pure disaster with the entire team against him. One thing is sure, he caused a great deal of excitement in the time that he was on top. First the entire battle with Saurav Ganguly over his performance and final ouster from the team. That ended in a great victory for Greg Chappell and the expectation that now that he is totally in charge of the team, maybe the performance of the team will improve. He added innovations such as focusing the team more strongly on net practise, also introducing a bio-mechanist Ian Frazer. However, the team only went from bad to worse, and each time, fans were reassured that no matter, the world cup is where India will make its mark.
And now we know where the India team stands. At current ranking, they will be somewhere at the bottom of known cricket playing countries. This world cup also resulted in a lot of reputations being shattered. Sachin Tendulkar, even having scored lowly before the world cup, still went into the tournament as a demi-god, but has come out with his reputation severly tarnished. There are now calls for his removal from the team, something that would have been impossible to think just a month ago.
Is it all due to the coach? I would not think so. Unlike games like football or basketball, the coach in cricket does not have the same kind of authority. It is the captain who matters more in day to day matters. And with the kind of batting performances by the India batting line-up, I very much doubt whether a coach could indeed have done anything great. What is required is more accountability, and ensuring that current performance is the only true criteria for a person to be in the team.
Now the board will go through the whole routine of trying to get a new coach, but as long as the current players wield the power that they do and there is no accountability, a new coach is not going to do any wonders. What is needed is a very active league that keeps on throwing up good players, such that there is always a threat to the current national players. And knowing how important endorsements are, it would be good for advertisers to start putting performance parameters in contracts.
An article about Chappell's resignation.

Greg Chappell's 22-month tempestuous tenure as India's cricket coach ended on Wednesday when he resigned after a bitter undeclared war of words with senior players including an anguished Sachin Tendulkar who said he had been 'shattered' by his criticism.
Under fire after India's shocking exit from the World Cup, the feisty Australian caved in only 26 days before his contract was due to end and e-mailed his resignation to the BCCI whose Working Committee meets here from Friday for a post-mortem of the team's poor showing.
In the days preceding his resignation, Chappell, speaking under the cover of "sources" close to him, attacked senior players for their attitude and accused them of behaving like "mafia" against junior players.

Labels: Cricket, India

The World Cup is turning out to have more surprises than anybody would have thought when the world cup was just going to start.

First, there was the shock about Pakistan getting eliminated from the World Cup, and then the heinousness of Bob Woolmer's murder that left a pall of shock and gloom over the World Cup. The subsequent stories emnating about the process of investigation and questioning are turning this into a crime thriller in the nature of a whodunit. The whole Pakistani team and a few others are investigated, and numerous other people come up with their own theories, and get their 15 minutes in the news.

Then, for us in India, the shock of India's departure from the World Cup is a shock from which I have yet to see people recover. There is a lot of heart-wringing in the media about how this is just a game, and so what if the Indian team lost, just get over it, it happens. For right or wrong reasons, cricket in India is more in the nature of a religion, and anybody who cannot understand why there is so much public reaction are just ignoring the immense popularity and fan following of the game (at the same time, people resorting to violence need to be condemned).

Unless the cricket team gets back to its winning ways, there is going to be a lot of repurcussions. Everybody wants some accounting for this performance, and asking for Sharad Pawar's resignation is not going to lead anywhere. Similarly, asking for Vengsarkar's head due to he being the head of the selectors is not going to do anything. People in the firing line are going to be the coach, and some players. For the first time, I have seen people seriously question about the utlity of retaining Sachin in the team, and even an year ago, such talk would have sounded like blasphemy.

There are going to be immense business decisions due to this loss as well. For some time now, the BCCI and ICC have been getting richer due to sponsors willing to spend more for the TV rights of tournaments, and there will likely be a real hit this time due to much reduced sub-continental viewership. In addition, there are daily reports about companies that have had significant adverising riding on the World Cup pushing for rate reduction, or for trimming their budgets. Already, a number of world cup related ads are now off TV.

Sporting sponsorship contracts for players are likely to get more performance linked as companies may not be willing to get locked into a 1-2 year contract, and then find themselves in a soup with the player under-performing and not having much utility in ads.

Other sports may find more money and attention depicted on them. For example, in the case of chess and golf, we have people who have had great achievements, and promise of much more, but there is hardly any focus, and the same for a number of other sports. These sports can definitely benefit from greater focus and public support.

This all comes with a rider, given the fickle nature of the Indian public, it can easily happen that the Indian team does very well in their next encounters over the next few months, and becomes the darling of the masses again.

Labels: Cricket, India

The story of Bob Woolmer is getting stranger and stranger. Cricket has always been known as a gentleman's game, with good manners, not much of uncouth behaviour, and mostly well behaved cricketers epitomizing all that is good about cricket. Even the people in cricket who were seen as bad boys such as Ian Botham, Shane Warne, etc, were not seen as bad characters as such, but more with a streak of irresponsibility.
And then the first saga of match fixing came onto the scene. With its immense popularity in the sub-continent, and the presense of the Indian diaspora everywhere, betting on cricket achieved astronmical proportions, with the mafia also getting involved. Cricket match-fxing was first seen as something that was simply not possible, and people hinting at this were people who had no idea, and such a thing could possibly not happen in this gentleman's game. And then the police and other official investigation started finding links that could just not be coincidence, and famous cricketers started falling to the chorus of guilty.
Some of the most famous ones have been icons in their own right such as Hansie Cronje, Azharudding, and Jadeja.
But if you read about the figures of betting involved on major games and tournaments, the amount of money involved is around the total sales of some of the major companies in the Indian sub-continent. Such money and the presense of criminal elements raises the stakes immensly. With such money involved, every game that turns the other way or happens in a way that causes upsets is seen with suspicion, and every inning that terminates suddenly with a rash shot causes those hidden thoughts to rise. It is after all a lot of money, and after the fall of great cricketers in the past, it is no major effort to think about money having swayed decisions.
Bob Woolmers death is all the more suspicious. His body was found in suspicious
circumstances, just after a shock defeat of Pakistan at the hands of a rank upstart like Ireland that pushed Pakistan out of the tournament. His room had signs of vomit and blood, and after his autopsy and further forensic investigations, his death has now been ruled as a homicide. In addition, the Pakistani cricket side has been asked to stay back for a bit more time, and there are reports that given that he was the coach of the Pakistani side, the team members have been questioned independently and may be asked to provide DNA samples. Read this news article:

The Pakistan team's stay in the West Indies has been extended by a day or two for reasons not known yet, sources in the Pakistan Cricket Board said on Friday.
They were scheduled to take a flight out from Jamaica on Saturday but now this might be delayed to Monday or Tuesday," a well-informed source said.
He, however, said he could not say for certain if the delay was due to the ongoing
investigations into the murder of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer, who was found dead in his hotel room on Sunday.
"I don't know if it has to do with the investigations but their departure is going to be delayed," the source said.

This investigation has now pushed the world cup into a lot of controversy, given that a murder investigation, with suspicions of the betting mafia being involved will overshadow every other event of the world cup, and people will find it hard to forget this horrible incident. One can only hope that this murder is investigated thoroughly so that all the hidden angles are also brought out.

Labels: Cricket, Investigation, Police

Nimbus and Prasar Bharti (Doordarshan) have arrived at some sort of understanding over the broadcasting rights for the ongoing India-West Indies One Day series. Nimbus has offered to give a seven-minute delayed feed to Doordarshan and All India Radio after much pressure from the Government:

Private broadcaster Nimbus Communications Ltd agreed in court on Tuesday to share advert-free feed of the remaining games in the India versus West Indies cricket series, but with a seven-minute delay. The government ordered Nimbus on January 19 to share its live feed with state-run Prasar Bharati, saying the matches were a matter of national interest in cricket-mad India.
This story would make you laugh, but it is a very serious story in national interest - the interest of how the Government will not think twice to subvert commercial contracts if there is some pressure on the Government. But nowhere do I even venture to say that the Government is in the right.

How did this whole issue evolve and what was the history behind it? The BCCI (a private body) awards contracts for TV coverage of its series. This is a highly lucrative business that has been bringing in an increasingly massive amount of money for BCCI, as well as for the company that picks up the TV rights (through advertising), but Prasar Bharti does not want to spend the amount of money that it will need to pick up the rights.
This has happened in the past, when Ten Sports had some rights and was trying to show it exclusively. Due to intervention by the courts and the Government, Doordarshan got the rights to show the cricket series alongside Ten Sports. In this process, not only did they show the matches, but they actually showed their own ads and earned a fair amount of money. Downright looting that no one would tolerate if this was happening to a company that they own. This is a gross violation of property rights and commercial contracts.
I would submit that cricket is not a national interest matter, it is certainly not of the type where not sharing the broadcast feed is 'unpatriotic,' as the minister termed it. If the government is so concerned, it should step in when the BCCI is drawing up the rights contract mandating that the feed needs to be shared with Doordarshan. This will enable the contract value to be then correctly estimated.
It is painful for fans to not see the matches, but cricket is a game, and the showing of the matches is a pure commercial transaction, just like being able to view the US Open or a Golf tournament where Jeev Milkha Singh is playing. To pretend that the legal position changes because more people are interested in watching cricket than other sports is wrong.

Labels: Cricket, Governance, Law

Looks like members of the Indian parliament have nothing better to do. There was actually news reports that in parliament, the issue of the performance of the Indian cricket team was discussed. This is incredible. What a waste of national money. To keep parliament in session takes almost a small army of workers and enough budget to help A LOT of needy families.
So in the time when member of the Indian parliament could have been discussion as to why China is ahead of India in terms of attracting funds from its diaspora and from others, as to why farmers are committing suicide, etc, they are actually spending time discussing cricket. We would laught if it was not such a serious issue.
Cricket is a game controlled by the BCCI, which is not affliated to the government. Even though cricket is a game loved by a huge percentage of the nation's citizens, it is not the only game. If they needed to have a discussion, they could discuss as to why it is a national shame that India, the world's second most populous country, cannot build good infrastructure and a good set of administrators who can make sure that we consistently produce world-beaters in various sports. While on the subject of cricket, this was a perfect occasion to bring other issues in the discussion such as why the favourite of a particular region was discriminated against, and so on. Incredible. I will not debate the merits or demerits of Saurav Ganguly's current abilities, but for a member of the Indian parliament to plead his case in the middle of the Indian parliament is downright outrageous.

Labels: Cricket, Parliament, Waste