WIN or GO Home !!!!!!!!!!!

Today the NBA playoffs begin.I have been wanting to post my picks for the past couple of years but somehow missed it. I am a hardcore fan of Detroit Pistons and I think they have as good a chance as anybody to win it all.

Eastern Conference

Boston - Atlanta - This is easy to call and it will be a no contest. Boston will win it 4-0

Detroit - Philadelphia - Philadelphia is a good young team that plays hard but does not have enough ammunition to get past detroit. Detroit wins 4-1

Orlando - Toronto - ITs a good matchup between superman Howard and Chris bosh. Orlando has a horrible backcourt while toronto has 2 very good point guards. this is one matchup I cannot make up my mind on either side strongly. Orlando wins 4-3

Cleveland - washington - this is the matchup where you can think about picking the underdog Washington and many of the analysts are picking washington. I still think Lebron will win the series for cleveland and the series will be close but i think lebron will get some calls in the final minutes of the games which will be a huge advantage for cleveland. Cleveland wins 4-3

Western Conference

LA - Denver - This is the only series which is easy to call. LA wins 4-2

SA - Phoenix - This is going to be the best series in the first round. Phoenix is going to win and Shaq will get more credit than he deserves for the role he played in helping phoenix get past spurs. Phoenix - 4-3 in one of the best series.

Dallas - NO - My pick forthis is Dallas. I expect Dirk to redeem himself somewhat with this series win. This will be a real close series and I expect it to go to game 7. Dallas wins 4-3

Houston - utah. This is also going to be a tough series. I am picking Mcgrady to win his first playoff series. Houston wins 4-3.

IPL - (I)nsanely (P)rofitable (L)eague for cricketers (... washed up cricketers too)

After a long hiatus, I am back to blogging and this post is somewhat related to my previous post . I also found it an interesting coincidence that my long hiatus came after my 13th post. anyway i will cut to the main point.

I am amazed at the amount of money being offered to players in IPL. Cricket is not a huge game when compared to Soccer in some extent to even NBA or NFL or MLB. Soccer is undoubtedly the richest game in the world. I think the professionals in soccer are the highest paid sportspersons. Peyton Manning one of the top quarter backs in the NFL signed a 7 year deal for 98 million dollars. Lebron james one of the top players on the NBA signed a deal for 60 million US dollars. The numbers in the baseball come out to be around 130 million dollars for 7 years for top players. At the outset these numbers come out to be huge when compared to cricket but its not true. This is because all these players in the other leagues are expected to have year long commitments to their respective franchise with the regular season and the championships and the offseason training regime and so on. Compared to this, IPL requires a 8 week commitment window only or maybe a little more. No way would a rooki player like ishant sharma would command the contract he got in IPL. I can again cite the example of NBA where players are assigned to a rookie minimum contract for 3 years i believe and prove that they can play at the highest level and be at top fitness for 3 years and then they can get the highest paid contract. This gives some insurance for the management so that if the player flames out after promise, ther can move on.The other important thing is the money being offered is only to the top players and only at the peak of their careers. I do agree that there are some overpaid players too in NBA and other leagues too. My point is once a player is past his prime, his contract will be waived and he will not be resigned. The money offered by IPl is huge for the retirees like damien martyn, glen mcgrath and others. This money is like lottery on vacation for players like cairns, harris and others.

Who do these retirees and other indian players have to thank? Not the franchisee sponsors; not the monopolistic BCCI; Mr subash chandra, for without him there would be no ICL without which there would have been no IPL at all.

The Cricket League by ZEE- Dawn of a new era????

There was a big news on the cricketing front last week. I am not talking about the World Cup review meeting held by the BCCI. I am talking about a move which will be very good for cricket in the long run - The formation of a new cricket league by ZEE. I am surprised by the lukewarm response in the media to this announcement.

This league if successful would be very good for India and Indian cricket for a number of reasons. There is a lot of money that could be earned by this league. This league will also not let BCCI be the lone player in the cricket field and can reduce some of its monopolistic policies for Indian cricket as well as cricket in general. BCCI cannot be monopolistic if part of its viewership base and TV ratings is stolen by this rival cricket league. Another important outcome of this league would be that it would something for the Indian fans to follow closely other than the Indian cricket team. Hopefully, there would lesser number of effigies being burnt and houses being attacked by the so-called "passionate" fans. Lastly, this league would also benefit the domestic and international discards to get a chance to shine and be in the spotlight. This would be a good chance for players like Andy Flower, Steve Tikolo. Imagine people of Chennai and Mumbai cheering for Andy flower, Steve Tikolo (similar to Dirk Nowitzki being cheered for the Dallas mavericks).

For the league to be successful, media has a very important role to play. The media is responsible for a majority of things happening now in Indian cricket. It plays up all the stories, hypes up all the tournaments and players and stirs the passion of the cricket fans. Everyone knows media can highlight the issues which it wants to highlight.This is why I think the media has a very important role to play in the development of this cricket league. Subash Chandra has played his cards right so far. He has got the timing abosolutely perfect. His announcement comes at a time when the Indian fan is looking for something to cheer other than Indian cricket. The average fan is definitely not going to dump cricket and start watching Tennis, Hockey or for that matter even Kabaddi (Again, the media is at fault here...All the hype is given to Cricket..very little coverage to other Sports). He has also decided not to take the BCCI head on initially and by suggesting that it will run in "parallel" with the international cricket league, he has taken a passive but aggressive stand. He knows BCCI is too strong to challenge it initally. By putting his proposal to the BCCI, he has proposed BCCI to either support it offstage or reject it. Either way, he can chip away slowly at BCCI's revenues. The cricket league will have initial setbacks but if persisted will be a huge money spinner in the long run. It will be interesting to see how things unfold from here.

Who's the real Culprit? The ICC or Darrel Hair or Pakistan team & PCB

All serious cricket followers (even the non serious cricket foll0wers )should be well aware of the bizzarre events that took place in England last week. The total issue has been very badly handled and has gotten very bad publicity because of the mishandling. England and Pakistan have always been involved in controversies especially whenever Pakistan visits England. Actually, England is one whiny team. England always complains about touring subcontinent, about food there and many other things. They always come up with excuses and just cannot accept the fact that the opposition was better. They have always complained about ball tampering against Pakistan (I am not saying that Pakistan has not tampered the ball ..) Maybe there were some cases where there were some wrongdoings...but most of Enland's whinings were unjustified. The funny part is Mike Atherton was once caught on charges of ball tampering.

Pakistan team should have lodged an official protest after the day's play was over. The pakisani team's protest of staying inside the dressing room after tea was grossly unjustified and stupid. They should have protested immediately after Darrell Hair changed the ball. Instead they waited till tea and made a big fool of themselves when they reappeared 20 minutes after tea.

Darrell Hair!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This name has always been associated with controversy. I do not see that its just mere coincidence that all his controversies were involved with asian nations. Poor guy made a laughing stock of himself by the email he sent to the ICC (He did not think that the ICC would reveal the email...I personally think the ICC was wrong in revealing the email..if it wanted to use in the case between Pakistan and ICC it could have very well used it without revealing the email to the public...) Anyways, $500000 is a very large amount, especially for a guy who was planning to retire next year after the world cup.

ICC is the biggest culprit of all I believe. The rule of ball tampering is one of the many laws that is ambiguous at best . Laws which need change have not been changed. When this big issue needs attention, the case has been delayed becuase the Ehsan Mani is on vacation and cannot reach Enland. After days of confusion, the ICC has come up with a very quick date of last week of September. I am really amazed and appalled at the way the ICC has grossly mishandled the issue. The way the ICC has handled the issue has made me think that the ICC wants the issue to drag on and gain some negative publicity. It has made a fool of Darrell Hair by revealing his email.

So by the end of next month this issue might be resolved with either Inzamam being punished or let off.Until then and even after that Cricket will go on. ICC will continue in its inept way of handling things. The cricket watching public will continue to be fooled once in a while by issues like this. But still, the fan following will be there because the love of the game pardons these inept handling and arrogant nature of some of the administrators and the players.

Minority ruling the Majority(??????)

Ever since I read a couple of articles in rediff about the brahmins and their plight, so many thoughts have been crossing my mind. The issue is a very important one and also a very neglected one. The articles may have affected me more since I am also a brahmin. I have tried best to bring this issue from a neutral standpoint.

India is a unique country in many ways. It is also very unique in the sense that it is probably the only nation in the world where the minority rules the majority. All attention is turned towards the minority and the majority fears the minority because the card of secularism is overplayed by the politicians, media and by almost everybody in the country. Many of us(including me) have not voiced their true opinions for being stereotyped and for fear of being criticized for supporting the majority(even though that maybe the logical and the right opinion). The rediff article brought out the plight of the Brahmins with so many statistics that brought out the gross disparity in pay for the Brahmins. There are very few Government support programs for the downtrodden brahmins. There are so many issues apart from the prime issue affecting the so called "Forward Community" - RESERVATION. I think reservation has lost us many deserving Doctors and now with the reservations in the IIM we will probably lose out on many more deserving Business Acumen. This is the prime reason for very few brahmins being Doctors. The probability and possibility of a Brahmin getting into Medical College(especially in my part of the Country- Tamil Nadu ) is very very low. Brahmin Parents (who generally are very proud of the academic achievements of their kids and do anything to motivate them during high school) considering the enormity of the task involved, discourage their child to become Doctors and ask them to seek some alternate routes. Reservation leads to a situation to what me and my friend calls " Reverse Discrimination". Deserving people are left out for no fault of theirs and may feel demotivated. People who really want to get into the best school and put in the required hardwork are very frustrated and disappointed when they could not make the cut just because of the reservation. This may have devastating effects when they are just out of high school. Let me tell you how the reservation should work. No way should a person who have the required marks should be out.Statistics have shown that the reserved seats almost end up getting not fully filled and the percentage of people who complete the degree is also relatively low. The seats must be increased totally to accomodate the people who come in the reservation quota. This is just one more instance of everything being done in India to please the minority. The sad but true thing is that there are many people who convert just to take the benefits of being a minority. Reservations and minority were issues that were played by politicians to garner votes and is a very bad influence on the society.

Everyone in India will remembra the Gujarat riots as one where several muslims were killed. No one remembers why and how the Gujarat riots were started. It was started when the coach containing many hindu brahmins had been burnt alive by some miscreants. Here I am not justifying that Godhra riots were the right retaliation and saying what Narendra Modi did what was right. The sad thing about the buring up was that it was not big news and very little interest was shown by the media. Jayalalitha was one of the very few who spoke about the incident and I think her comments about this was one of the best things done by her. Her comments were something similar to the following lines. "Just because the people who died were from the forward caste the issue is not being talked about. The media does not spread the news, No politician has condemned the killings for fear of being typecasted. I am not like that" The message sent by Jayalalitha's statements were very clear. Maybe the life of a person from the minority is more valuable than a person from the Forward Caste. We see many news about muslims being killed but when the same thing happens to the opposite end of the caste ladder it is being downplayed. Incidents like these and many more make me think that we need the RSSs and the BJPs and Bal Thackerays just to keep the Brahmins in the society. I still do not know whose life is more valuable. Maybe at least in India, the life of a minority is more valuable. I really hope that the above statement is not true but sadly it is true.

Here are the links to the two articles I read. Please take a few minutes and read the article.

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/15franc.htm?q=tp&file=.htm
http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/may/23franc.htm

Two-Tier System for Internet?????????

This week I received an email from ebay. This email was different from the usual emails containing information about discounts and the hot selling products customized to my preferences. The email talked about the telecom powers trying to use their enormous size and political muscle to control the internet accessibility.The phone and cable companies now control more than 95% of all Internet access. These large corporations are spending millions of dollars to promote legislation that would divide the Internet into a two-tiered system.The top tier would be a "Pay-to-Play" high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net. The bottom tier -- the slow lane -- would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information "super-highway," the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road.

If this is indeed true and looks like it certainly, this is indeed a serous issue. First there are cost issues and many normal people will not be able to afford the high speed Internet. This might result in a decline in sales for the online companies. The other issue could be more employees accessing the Internet at workplace and might result in lesser productivity .

For more information, check this link at http://www.itsournet.org/ .

The other prominent issue would be the controlling of the Internet standards and legislation. There is still some efforts at reaching consensus and as expected the U.S is trying to control the legislative powers and be the controlling force for setting Internet standards.

This is an interesting link I visited recently. It will be fun especially for people from Tamilnadu.

http://video.google.com/
videoplay?docid=4413202459678535244&q=tamil

Election Results, Reservations again and the disappointing Lok Parithran

I know its too late for me to comment on the TN Assembly election results but the rivetting NBA playoffs and my crazy fascination to it and also the summer classes which bother me to a certain extent have kept me busy and consequently made this post a little outdated. The Election results were as expected. The TN voters chose the other Dravidian party. In Tamil Nadu it has always been a case of voting against the incumbent party. The DMK and ADMK swap powers on such a consistent basis that they pretty much know that they cannot retain power and hence try to extract as much as possible and hence the cases against the former government and the so called acts of "political vendetta" by the new governments(both parties included). The converse fact should also hold true that people get fed up with the votes of the incumbent government and just vote for the alternative party to give them. Maybe its a combination of both these factors and also a lack of third choice in Tamil Nadu that causes the predictable return of the alternative party to power each and every time the Elections are held. In West Bengal the opposite thing has been happening for an amazingly long period of time. The Left has held power for almost three decades now. I guess they must be doing something good!!!!!!!!!

There has been enough debates and protests about reservations. As usual these debates and protests are proving to be useless. They just spread the information a little more to the common mass. The Government has decided to go ahead with a reservation from 27% in 2007. I happened to watch the interview of karan thapar with Arjun Singh where Arjun Singh had literally no answers for his statistics and perfectly logical questions expressing the flaws of the reservation. Karan Thapar repeatedly tortured him with accurate data and crisp questions and it is also fair to say that Arjun Singh also tortured Karan Thapar with his blunt replies and a constant safe reference to the reservation as a decision taken by the Parliament. Ultimately though the interview was pretty much similar to the protesst held over the countries; useless and the government decides to go ahead with the reservation policy. Apparently if the wise men of the Country take a decision ( good or bad) it is near impossible to reverse the decision. This is a sorry state of affairs.

I think it may not be out of context to bring the potential demise of Lok Parithran.I was one of the many persons who had some hope in Lok Parithran( at least I thought so ). On reading the news about their split, that too so soon after the elections I was extremely disappointed. I did not expect this from youngsters with great knowledge who had left their potential lucrative careers to choose this path. The reason for the split was the normal egotistical issues and each party accused the other side making it look like the age old political parties that people hate. I have heard this saying in my childhood " Politics is like gutter. Don't get into it. It is very impossible for a good man to succeed in politics. Polictics convert good people into bad people" . Maybe it does.

Here are the links to the interview. It may be a waste of time or useful depending on the way you see it

http://home.iitk.ac.in/~vivmisra/arjun.wmv
http://home.iitk.ac.in/~vivmisra/arjun2.wmv