Political drama contd.

Mayawati(40)
So the next PM-in-waiting is Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Right now her chance looks slim but keeping in mind the kind of PMs we got in past, she cannot be written off. Her best chance though seems to be on both sides, I believe it would be very difficult for her to ally with the BJP. Best condition for her would be that UPA falls short of majority by about 60 seats and then she along with left parties can bargain to be the next PM.

Sharad Pawar(10-15)
Surprising that even Sharad Pawar can be a contestent for PM's post with such limited reach. His chance is again much like Mayawati's. UPA should fall by about 50-60 seats and then he can be a compromise PM, provided left parties are willing. His candidature would be taken by the UPA with lesser pinch of salt than of Mayawati.

There are many others who have not come out openly with their candidature but with their past track record we can expect them to be having buried desire of being PM. I discussed this with my friend Saucy and may be we could have any one of them next time.

Political drama

So how many PM-in-waiting are we going to have this time? The pre poll alliances of two major national parties are in disarray. Congress has lost PMK. BJP has lost BJD. And third seems to be congregation of every possible front in India.

Lets look at prospects of our PM-in-waiting.

Manmohan Singh (235) It is very clear Congress will not be able to cross 200 seats in this election. Well, if they cross 150 it would be their best performance since 1991. It all boils down to its allies. They have several of them but stronger of them are in post poll scenario. RJD, LJP and SP are going to bag about 50 seats but they are not in pre poll alliance with Congress. In fact they have made a mockery of Congress during seat sharing talks. Now they are left with the DMK,NCP,TC,JMM etc. who even if they are on their best can't get over 35 seats. Now there lies the catch. Will Congress go to Left parties? Even if they go they will end up losing Trinamool Congress as next year we have assembly elections in West Bengal. 

Lal Krishna Advani(235) Greater troubles plague L K Advani who is not just having problems with allies but infighting (due to Shekhawat, Jaitley and others) assuming alarming height. They dont seem to be getting more than 150 seats either. Their allies SAD, Shiv Sena, JD(U) (at the time of writing they are still with the BJP), INLD, RLD,AGP can be expected to bag 35 seats. However their richer catch lies in post poll scenario. Though it seems unlikely at this point, they can bag TDP, AIADMK, PMK who could be fairly assumed to bag 50 seats. This makes the number to be 235. Now to make up the numbers they need to fall back on BJD and... yes you guessed it right BSP. And then we have our next PM-in-waiting. More about this in  next post.

Professionals or Amateurs

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the captain of Indian Cricket Team in ODIs and Twenty20 was recently in the epicenter of mini-controversy about the amount of cricket being played. He was snubbed by the BCCI albeit politely. But is he right?

Dhoni never complained of tiring on field when playing in the IPL, though he did complained of tight schedule. Remember Sachin Tendulkar and S. Sreeshanth who played all the matches in the so called ‘business end’ of the tournament but just after that were declared unfit for the Bangladesh tri-series and the Asia Cup. It is too naive to believe that the injury surfaced just after the IPL. Sachin Tendulkar did not play in the first leg of the IPL and his comeback and then opting out of these two ODI tournaments is clearly denying his service to his nation because of his franchisee. These cricketers were so passionate playing for their franchisee that it seemed they never played for India. Yes, you are right. I am referring to the Sreeshanth-Harbhajan slapgate and the Mumbai-Punjab match when after the match Yuvraj had to remind the crowd that some of the Punjab boys also played for India. Such was the hostility.

Agreed that players like all of us have right to make money but should it come at cost of their nation. The fielding standards have been appalling in this Asia Cup. Even the best of Indian fielders have looked jaded. Ishant Sharma and Pravin Kumar matched Munaf’s standard in fielding. There is no limit to how much money you can or want to earn but indiscriminate money minting is should not be allowed esp. in India. We all know some of the best football is witnessed in EPL but see the performance of English team. Those who think the IPL has given confidence and new stars please wait. We have not seen enough of these ‘stars’ in international cricket till now. Yusuf Pathan has not proved himself yet even on the flattest of the pitches in the world. Piyush Chawla was taken to cleaners by Younis Khan, who I believe is ultimate test for any spinner. So although Chawla has looked good against weaker oppositions he was decimated by Salman, Younis and Misbah.

No Indian player could top either the bowling or batting chart in the IPL although we are current champions in T20. I still believe that only those players will succeed who have proved themselves in the domestic circuit. Suresh Raina was pretty successful this season and he is belting runs in the Asia Cup also. At least he has proved himself on flat pitches.

If we have to become world beaters as the West Indies were and the Australia are, we need top-class Test players. We won T20 World Cup though we had the least experience in it. We need T20 only to finance Test Cricket. A true cricket lover would always enjoy Test matches. We need to develop players who can play longer version of the game and are world class. We need professionals who can stand tall like Mcgrath, Holding and Marshall and the spinners like Warne, Murali or Kumble. We had two of the best Test batsmen in Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid during 90’s and this decade. We need more such batsmen. We need professionals in Test matches, leave T20 to amateurs and forget ODIs. Why not hold Asia Cup in T20 format?

Reservations. Is there a solution?

Recently, whole of Rajasthan was embroiled in a stand-off between Gujjars, Meenas and the state government. After all the hoopla the Gujjars, it seems have got a raw deal. The Chopra committee has not considered them for ST status and the state cabinet has also rejected their demand for inclusion in ST. Gujjars have called for mahapanchayat on the issue to decide the future course of action.

It seems the problem of reservation is fast turning into a threat for peace and integrity of this country.
Who deserves reservations and who should be excluded is the big question? The reservations in India have been caste-based since independence. The problem with this is that some castes have been grouped together under a group and that means the dominant caste is eating into the shares of weaker castes, defeating the whole purpose of reservations. This is what has happened with Gujjars. They are already in the OBC category and now they want themselves to be declared ST much to chagrin of Meenas. There have been numerous suggestions, ranging from doing away with reservations to giving reservation to lower income strata of Upper castes.

I believe the just way to give reservations is income level and not caste. However, in India we should look at various facets. There should be caste based reservations only for SC/ST. This is because they have borne the brunt of this caste system. The problem of untouchability continues in India even now. There are temples where dalits are still not allowed. However, immediate beneficiary of those SC/ST who are in class 1 and class 2 jobs should be kept out of this as they have the wherewithal to compete.
Only, those scheduled castes should be given reservation this way who are followers of Hindu religion because as far as I know caste system exists in only Hindu religion. However if there is any other religion with caste system, the followers of that religion should also be included. As for rest 27 % the reservations should be income level and all the other castes in Hindu religion and minorities should be included in this. Only those below poverty line should be given benefit. So, the group with maximum number of population below poverty line would benefit most and this is the whole purpose of giving reservations.

Another question is that quality will suffer. I will write on this topic later.

A dull series ends finally

This is a very uncommon title for an India-Pakistan series. The two arch rivals whose duel is termed as Asian Ashes and more than the game, historical rivalries fire the imagination. Stop there. The historical rivalries are in fact marring the competence in this contest. I noted one thing which came to light only due to the fiasco by the KCA on switching the lights on. The teams had agreed not to play in artificial light before the start of this series. Now you can say what is wrong in it. Think again. This is a clever ploy to somehow avert a possible defeat. And it suits the purpose because in such a volatile encounter no team would like to lose and administrators along with players favor this defensive approach.
I vividly remember the 1999 series between India and Pakistan when the team led by Wasim Akram was termed a very weak team as it had lost the prior series to Zimbabwe at their home. They finally won two test matches and decimated India in one-dayers. That team had in its rank Aamir Sohail,Saeed Anwar, Ijaz Ahmed,Salim Malik, Moin Khan, Waqar Younis, Saqlain Mushtaq and Wasim Akram and were still termed weak. The next tour of Pakistan was in 2005 and the team was termed weakest despite having Inzy, Yousuf, Afridi, Akmal, Shoaib Malik and Younis Khan. The series was a draw. In 2007, again the team was labeled the weakest and Kiran More went to the extent of terming it weakest Pakistan team in 40 years. Still Indians prepared belters in the series and it was hard time for bowlers in the series. Even Anil Kumble bowled 44 overs and could pick only one wicket in the first innings of Bangalore test. This is the problem not only with Indians but Pakistanis also. Just remember the last series against Pakistan. Pakistan were clear favorites but instead of relying on their strength (that is pace bowling) they prepared docile wickets in first two tests. Finally good sense prevailed and in Karachi we saw a very good wicket on which Pakistan comfortably won.

It seems both India and Pakistan are afraid of losing and that is clearly affecting the quality of cricket between the two. I remember when a TV journo was going ga ga over Dada’s stamina after his double hundred, Aquib Javed commented that it were Pakistanis more than Dada who were responsible for his stamina. You have to agree with him if you saw Mohammed Yousuf or Sami or Shoaib Akhtar field. Even club level cricketers would be put to shame by the fielding standards exhibited by Pakistan. Indians on the other hand continued their catch-dropping spree. I am sure Australians would need only a few of them to annihilate India. And the bowling of Pakistan team was no better. Even Bangladesh attack is better if you discount those few spells by Shoaib. 3 bowlers bowling for 150 overs on a featherbed.You can’t help but feel for them. Indians would have been better prepared if they had played domestic cricket rather than this series.

I hope better sense prevails over the officials of the two countries and they have sufficient gap between these contests. The tour schedule should be such that players get more practice games and have some time to recover between two tests. The pitches should be of high-quality as we saw in 2004. Otherwise, there is no use of having such dull series every year. Please, please, please spare us of this boredom.

Halfway at IIT Kanpur

I am writing this post when I have completed my 5th semester at IIT Kanpur.I am a dual-degree student so that means I have another 5 semesters to go. I just could not get time to write anything as my endsems were going on. However, I felt like writing something every now and then.Be it CPM goons on rampage in Nandigram, be it Imran Khan's arrest,be it progress on nuclear deal, or appointment of Anil Kumble as Test skipper.Just so many things to write about.

However, as my title suggests I am going to write about my stay at IITK in these two and half years and coincidentally residing in a single Hall for these many years.

I must admit that my lifestyle has changed a little bit from what it used to be when I came here.I now invariably wake much more in night (courtesy assignments and two papers a day).

Looking back I notice how different the 5 semesters have been, hardest being this last one.With the start of departmental courses,I feel a bit alienated as my old buddies who are in different departments can't study with me.I don't know why IITs don't have more flexible inter disciplinary courses or open electives. I don't know what I achieved in these many years and what I could not do in these many years. But then like most other Indian students who are above average in maths I too dreamt of being an IITian and that is why i am happy and content being here.

I think I am awake now and realise that you, the person with tons of patience have read through an extremely boring post by a lazy person riding on horns of dilemma. I am in third year and in two years time I will be presenting my thesis but I still don't know where my interest lies.

The topics I like don't fetch me marks and the topics I hate give me much needed lifeline in this mundane department. Today was a very mixed day with my close friends getting very less marks but other friends getting lucrative internship offers.Infact, I am not able to describe my feelings on this last day of my half stay at IIT Kanpur.

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

(1)A better semester next time and improving my grades.
(2)I get to know my interest in any subject just like I know my passion(cricket).
(3)Hopefully all my friends and me myself get a good internship.
(4)Last but not the least,I improve my batting and fielding skills in cricket.(I am helpless about my bowling).

P.S. Please be patient as you have been right now.I am sure I can improve my writing skills.

1857-Revolt or The feudal reaction

The nation is celebrating 150 years of Gadar and on this occasion it is befitting to ask whether this revolution had support of masses or was staged by disgruntled soldiers and angry royal houses of erstwhile India. Well, it is a very difficult question to answer because most of the account related to this revolution is based on writings of westerners.Some writers dispute whether Dalits were involved in this uprising or only upper caste Hindus and Muslims formed the disenchanted lot.

This blog presents my views on this issue.As far as the base of this revolt is concerned I believe
most of Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar was part of this uprising and this can be corroborated by following facts:

1:People supported only those kings or zamindars who raised the banner of revolt against British.The support given to Rani of Jhansi and others while disdain for Scindia family is proof for this.

2:The revolt was started by soldiers but gained widespread acceptance in farmers .The hanging of whole village in suspicion of being supportive of rebels and numerous such instances show how much support the revolt had.

3:In places like Azamgarh(Uttar Pradesh) rebels of Bihar, Kunwar Singh and Amar Singh were given support instead of local landlords some of whom were loyal to Company.

4:The heroes of 1857 find mention in folklores like "khoob ladi mardani..." and several others and this goes on to show the respect they have had in masses.

5: Some of the reasons for revolt were religious and religion is and has been a big thing in India for most people.

However, I am still not sure about participation at large scale by dalits in the uprising.There is a photograph of Gangoo Mehter who was tried for killing Britishers in Kanpur.But that does not mean whole Dalit community was involved in the revolt.

So, even though this revolt was limited to two states only but in these regions the support was
overwhelming except for some sections of society .

Note: This account is my perception of the Revolt.