IPL matches are going a very interesting way. The teams, which earlier had a series of victories, are collapsing and vice versa. Lets analyse how the teams are lined up for semi final berth.
RajasthanRoyalsmaintained their consistency through out the tournamentand are mostly assured of semifinal berth. The Kings Eleven Punjab, after loosing first two matches maintained their position and currently occupies second position. The major upset in the later part of the tournament is the fall of Delhi dare devils, who lost 4 consecutive matches after winning four consecutive matches. Another team which is struggling now is Chennai super Kings.
The super comeback team is Mumbai Indians, winning all the last 4 matches after having a very bad start. Kolkatta Knightriders started well winning two matches, but in between lost their rhythm to loose few matches before coming back with the victory in last game. The other two teams Bangalore royal challengers and Deccan Chargers are almost out of tournament.
So who will go to semis ? Only Rajasthan Royals seemed to be the only team certain to find its place. For the rest of the three places, strong competition exists between 5 teams. Kings XIPunjab, Chennai super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Delhi daredevils, and Kolkatta Knight riders have to fight it out. Lets see how the tournament progresses and how many more surprises are expected.
Karnataka is once again going for state election, Today second phase of polls is completed and one more phase is left. The election results are expected in the last week of May. I am native of Karnataka but now living away and hence decided to have a close look at state politics.
Historically Karnataka has always given some surprise results and most of the time, contrary to the national election Result. Till 1983, it was considered a stronghold of Congress and even during post emergency days, it voted for Congress. (Remember famous win of Indira Gandhi from Chikmagalur in 1978). The first non-congress government under Late Ramakrishna Hegde came to power in 1983 and the government was able to sustain and repeat the performance in 1985 in spite of congress wave after the death of Indira Gandhi. Subsequently power always shifted between Congress and Janata Dal till 2004 and most of the time exactly opposite to the national election. Karnataka also has the reputation of voting one party for state and another for center many times. BJP which was slowly building its base in Karnataka emerged as the largest party in 2004, but could not form the Government, because of shrewd and opportunistic politics by Deve Gowda.
The Karnataka politics is now very complex with as no party provided good governance or a leader for past few years. The congress has a good leader in SM Krishna, who is widely accepted among middle class. But the Karnataka congress has too many heavyweights and many of them do not want to accept Krishna has leader. This is a typical case when too many leaders spoil the party for their individual benefits. Reverse is true for BJP. It has a very strong base and mostly united, but lacks a strong leader of public acceptance. Yadiyurappa and Anant Kumar are both strong party men, but lacks public appeal. Then you have a JD (S), mostly seen has a party seeking opportunities. Kumaraswamy, son of Deve Gowda provided better than expected governance during his tenure of 20 months as Chief Minister, but his and his father’s political game in breaking the promise with BJP of handing over the power to BJP shadowed his positives. Except few places in Karnataka, the JD (S) is very weak in Karnataka, but these few seats are sufficient for formation of one more hung government and probably again JD(s) will have an upper hand with few seats in its hand.
What is very important and missing in Karnataka is a charismatic leader with mass appeal. In 1980s late Ramakrishna Hegde was able to attract such mass attention because of his non-nonsense politics. Subsequently only SM Krishna came close in achieving such mass appeal because of his eagerness in developing Karnataka and popularity among educated middle class. Even former Prime Minister Deve Gowda was able to develop mass appeal to someextent, but he lost it because of his shrewdness and opportunistic politics.
I hope at least this time, Karnataka to come out of hung assembly and single party should come to power. This is very important to take Karnataka in the path to progress which had began 10-15 years back but now going at snails pace due to political instability.
I never get time to read novels, but I do try to take time out from my regular schedule and read once a while. I just finished a recent novel from Chetan Bhagat called “ 3 mistakes of my life” First let me clarify. I am neither an expert nor have a capability to review and judge the novels. My expressions below are purely my thoughts about this novel and its author.
Chetan’s earlier novels “One night @ Call center” and “Five point someone” were huge success and Chethan was able to develop his own group of readers. I had read his “One night @ call centre ” but still to read “Five point someone” I somehow like to read Chetan Bhagat’s novel because they touch upon the young Indian and are very different from other novels.They are more related to a common man especially youth and neatly reflects what we experience or do everyday in our life. His characters are just an reflection of oneself. Sometimes you can relate many of his characters to yourself or your neighbor. His novels are written in simple language and without much fanfare. As Chetan says in his blog “ I write to express, not impress”
” 3 mistakes of life ” is also one such novel, where Chetan tried to explore the typical Ahmedbad and its people. He talks about three friends, who are set to start a Cricket Goods shop and then narrates how relationships, religion, politics and business influenced or changed them. What is more interesting is Chethan’s ability to provide good background for the story and his midas touch in keeping the story alive at every page.
His story tells us the typical life at Ahmedabad old city, where people have their own priortiies. His explanation of the day to day life of the Belrampur is quite interesting. The story also reflects the typical pro -business mindset of Gujarati community. If one stayed anywhere in Gujarat, he will definitely like the way Chetan put the things in his novel. The story also tells the impact of communal riots on those three friends and last few pages really keeps you too much involved in the novel. Overall a very good novel.
May be it is too early to compare. But I see a lot of similarities between Chethan’s work and Malgudi Days author R K Narayanan’s work. RK Narayan tried to explore the happenings of old village of Malgudi during pre-independence days where as Chethan is exploring the liberalised India and its youth in his novels. Both relates to common man and touch their readers with simplicity.
I am little unnerved after seeing the footage of Jaipur Blast aftermath on TV. 8 blasts, 60 people killed , more than 200 injured and above all entire city destabilised for a while. Few questions raised in my mind and like to share with you.
Why these blasts ? Why Jaipur ? What messages the terrorists wants to give ?/ Whoever is behind these blasts probably are not able to understand the life. The crying mothers and children who lost their sons and parents due to this manmade disaster made me to think again the purpose of mankind and for that matter Humanity.
We have seen in history any such violence attempts by any group for any purpose never succeeded and only died its own natural death. History is the evidence for this. Then still why people are playing with innocents life for their own interest. I am not able to find answers. Probably nobody including terrorists.
The Harbhajan-Sreesanth slap episode is probably coming to an end. Today BCCI Banned Harbhajan Singh from playing 5 one days. This is apart from earlier ban of 11 IPL matches he received from IPL committee.
The question here is is this enough. We all know what had happened that day between Sreesanth and Harbhajan. We saw Sreesanth crying. Harbhajan has gone to extreme of misbehaviour and slapped Sreesanth. Whole word knows about it. Whether it is just enough to ban Harbhajan for 5 international matches and close the chapter. Well, I am not the judge to decide it. But what message you are giving to cricket players. They can do whatever they like and still escape with all these minor punishments. How many times Harbhajan is going to put India and BCCI red faced. There is a Limit !!
BCCI may quote various rules and say that actions were taken as per rule book. Again, we all know, any rule may be altered or action may be suitably refer to some rules offering lighter punishments. Knowing the way BCCI operates as per its convenience, this is quite possible. BCCI is giving wrong signals by letting out Harbhajan with minor punishment.
The Institution like BCCI need to enforce discipline among all who come under its banner and the only way of doing this is to punish hardly if someone violates code of conduct. I only hope and prey that Harbhajan understands the leniency showed by BCCI and improve or at least try to improve in future.
I some time wonder how very matured and sensible people behave. I respect Amir Khan for his principles,thinking, courage of standing up to right things and dignity he holds. Again and again he has proved it whether it is controversy regarding Olympic torch relay or Narmada Issue.
My first sentence of the above para refers to the recent blog entry by Aamir khan in his blogsite www.aamirkhan.com. Well!! hold your breath !!. Amir says “Shahrukh is licking my feet and I am feeding him biscuits every now and then”. He further says ” Shahrukh is begging for his attention”. These statements may raise eyebrows, but Amir says in his blog that he is referring this to his pet dog Shahrukh. He further says that he has nothing to do with the naming of the dog as Shahrukh. Now these statements may clarify our initial thoughts on the wordings mentioned above, but nevertheless it raises few other questions.
Whether Amir wrote this blog entry just as a humor. Possibly yes !!. But even if it is a humor, whether he has done a right thing by knowingly or unknowingly raising doubts about his intentions. Presumably we all understand what Amir is trying to say. Amir should have a refrained from this because he is damaging his own name. The issue here is sensible and may lead to various inferences and conclusions. Few may think Amir is jealous of Shahrukh and hence is taking dig at him or few people may take it as just a humor. Whatever one may think, this blog entry is not in a good taste.
I am really surprised and this was least expected of Amir. I am not able to understand why Amir is getting in to this type of public gimmick, again knowingly or unknowingly. I am sure Shahrukh will hit back with his own way of answering his critics. This may turn out to be ugly word war and only Amir to be blamed for this. One advise to Amir - Your are a great actor and nice the way you are. Don’t get in to these “uncalled for controversies”.
Too read the above mentioned blog entry of Amir. cilck here
Everyone expected a lot of fire works from Sachin Tendulker today during match between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. Expectedly, after all Sachin is playing his first match in IPL T20. But they got to see the fireworks.. not from the master blaster … but from Srilankan Thunder Sanat Jayasuriya.
Sanat Jaysuriya has been criticised till yesterday as he was not performing for the price he is commending (Sanat is paid Rs 3.91 Crores). But today he shut everyone’s mouth. The blistering century of 114 runs in just 48 balls ( 11- 6S & 9 -4s) ensured Mumabi Indians a easy win of 9 wickets over Chennai Super Kings. It was Fantastic to watch Sanat sending ball beyond boundaries irrespective of Bowlers. Goni,Morkil,Sharma.. everyone was treated without any respect. I remember a decade back Sanat did the same thing to many bowlers and spoiled careers. One good example was probably Manoj Prabhaker. Sanat, if starts firing, he is unstoppable.
Earlier Chennai Super Kings made 156/6 in 20 overs, after some good batting by Badrinath ( 53) and Dhoni (43*). Mumbai Indians comfortably made 158/1 in 13.5overs and won the match by 9 wickets. With this win , Mumbai Indians are back in the match with 8 points and if they continue their dream run, they have a better chance of going to the semi final. Chennai team again lost, but Probably Dhoni knows how to get his team back to habit of winning.
Earlier the poverty in India was the main international Issue and India was always seen as a country with poor people. But see now !!!. How the world has changed. The splendid Economic growth in India changed the way world thinks about India because Indian economy changes the world economy. Indian prosperity is the issue being discussed. Recently both US president Mr Bush and secretory of state Condoleezza Rice blamed prosperity in India as the main reason for rise in food prices. They stated that Increase in prosperity in India has lead to better nutrition and rise in food prices.
Mr. Bush said “ ‘Just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That’s bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population.When you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”
I wonder how world has started recognising India now. If what Mr Bush says is true, then we need to believe how any change in India will affect the world. Be it change in food habits, change in clothing, change in investment strategy. What we see as prosperity in many Indian homes is just a single digit % of of total population. Imagine what will happen if most population of India ( and off course China) moves towards middle class and prosperity. Then Entire world will dance to Indian Tunes.
I am not sure about the validity of US statement. But at least now world started recoginsing India as a major contributor for world economy. And that’s very interesting !!1
Finally Chennai Super Kings have tasted their first defeat. Who else can break this undefeated side tag. Non other than Delhi Daredevils, the other prominent side in IPL. Today, Delhi Daredevils defeated Chennai super kings by 8 wickets comfortably, courtesy Virendra Sehwag.
If Virendra Sehwag plays then any any team will feel the fire. Same was the case with Chennai super kings. Viru scored a qucik 71 runs in 41 balls and made sure that delhi daredevils are near their target before getting out. He was well supported by reliable Gautham Gambhir. Before this Chennai Super kings were able to make 169/6 in 20 overs.
Today absence of Hyden and Hussey was clearly visible and Chennai Team is suddenly looking ordinary. Dhoni has to work out a new strategy for utilising his available resources to maximum extent. This is the real test for Dhoni prove his captaincy under different circumstances.
After wicketkeeper,Batsman and captain, now you can see Dhoni in his new avatar. Check out the latest Pepsi Ad. Dhoni is in pure south indian look with lungi and imitating Rajnikanth with dialogues of Shah Rukh Khan in Om Shanti Om ( Remember “Mind It”) Very Hilarious ad and Dhoni has done a quite good job. ( Supposedly earned lot of Money also )
This Ad will further a boost of Dhoni’s popularity, who is already gaining immense following in Tamilnadu as a captain of Chennai Super Kings.
critickiran