Is India ready for Nano?

Nano has been unveiled in India amidst huge hulla and it has all the build up for a blockbuster. But, IMHO India and Indians are not yet ready for Nano. Why? Here are the reasons:
• Indian roads and infrastructure are not yet ready for something like Nano. Imagine people buying a pulsar today buying a Nano(cost difference being only around 25k) and driving it instead of Nano. Even though the car is just 3 mts in length and has a turn radius of 4 mts it still is much more than the volume occupied on road and parking lots than of a pulsar. Considering the current scenario of traffic in India and the number of two wheelers getting registered daily, the image I see terrifies me.
• Indian social and economic climate still considers cars as a mark of luxury and not a necessity. In fact, Indian climate is also conducive to the fact that cars are not necessary.
• If we go by the logic, that each guy buying a pulsar buys a Nano, then the requirement for petrol will double assuming Nano delivers the promised mileage of 25 kmpl. This indeed is not a good news for already fuel crunch country India.
• There are claims that this is the birth of Indian technology and that it is a great step for India in the field of technology. I agree, but there are many other spectrums where India can and has to prove its technological power. Let us concentrate on those areas.
• I am no auto expert to be writing this comment. But from what I read and heard from my friends, the car design is not very good in case of any unforseen event of it crashing. The front hardly got any mass to tolerate the impact of the collision and hence, it can be fatal for the driver.

I do not mean to crash all those having a Nano dreams. All I want to say is it is a no no for Nano from me.

Border Gavaskar trophy

The Border Gavaskar trophy of 2008 will be remembered for reasons many for each one of us. My own diary of the series

• The most unaustralian side I have seen. When do you see an Australian team with not a single bowler who has average less than 30. How often you hear of figures like 0/199 in 30 overs for an Australian bowler even if it was in a practice match.
  
• The most sporting (read uncompetitive) Australian team I have seen in recent times. The only episode of unruly behaviour came from the Indian camp in the form of Gautam Gambhir. Perhaps, rightly they have learnt to lose now.
• It was Indian festival all through. The series ran parallel to the most famous indian festival Diwali came as a blessing in disguise to Indians. Begining from Sachin's record breaking run, we had Anil Kumble's grand farewell and Dada's winning farewell.
  
• War of words was started and also won by India for a change. This is primarily because Australians chose to remain silent this time and Indians ... well we had all of them speaking volumes. Once again the focus was not on war on field but off the field. Indians should have surely avoided it especially the Gambhir incident.
• Post series win Indians have been on a rampage giving one statement over the other and claiming that we are the no.1 side in the world now. Australians attained the no.1 status after tasks like beating Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka and beating NZ in NZ. India is far from doing these. India won a series at home which is nothing but expected because home pitches are tailor made. If Indian attains the same win in Australia then may be we can claim to have moved a notch towards the no.1 spot.One more important factor what I felt was the matches were mostly decided by the spin of the coin and not the spin of the ball. Whoever won the toss dominated the match. Had Australia been luckier than probably we would not have been celebrating this.
• The last day of the series was something to watch out for. The aggression with which Aussies came out to bat especially Hayden and the way Indians matched their aggression, it was test cricket at its best.
  
• No doubt Ponting will have more than a few questions to answer over his game plan of preferring to think about the ban in the next series and letting a winning chance slip away in the final test.
• Australians have learnt to lose in spirit. Indians have just started their winning ways. Hope they handle their win maturely by not giving any horrendous statements.
  

Back to cricket

It has been quite a while I wrote abour my favourite topic, cricket. And thanks to Zaheer Khan, I got the topic to write about. To be very precise about my point here, Zaheer khan's comments about australian team are uncalled for. Statements like this australian team is the most defensive australian team are completely uncalled for.  It is clearly evident from the score cards as to who dominated the game. The very fact that Ponting dared to give a sporting declaration with a target of under 300 on a day to finish is enough to show the amount of courage he has and the amount of confidence it has in his bowlers. Then , it was left to India to find out ways of delaying the inevitable and to put it in best words for India, they managed to salvage some pride in this tailor made slow pitch for them. Yes, it is a fact that Aussies are missing a key spinner in their side for this tour, but nevertheless, this match was always under australian control for me and we just managed to sneak through. Hope such statements from players do not start the war of words again and eventually we end up losing the main focus on the game .

Battle of Perth 2

This happens to be the most exciting test match of my cricket crazy years. And hence ,I am writing a daily account of the match here. India are right at top at the moment. Indians began the day well on an aggressive mode with Viru going for the shots. It is a pity Sachin and Dravid failed to capitalize on their first innings form. Dhoni played a hand after a really long time . But the hero of the day has to be Pathan. Sent in as a the night watchman after Wasim Jaffer failed yet another time, he played a gem of an innings. Laxman played his usual best against Australia. RP Singh gave some thrills towards the finish and Indian tail wagged than longer giving Australia a record score to chase. Aussie run chase has begun on wrong note with both openers failing to fire again and Pathan the tormentor again. Ponting seems to be steadying the ship with his aggressive best. This is a cracker in store for the weekend.
Being an Indian fan and also a Steve Waugh fan, I want Indian team to come victorious and as of now the prospects look 70-30 in favor of India. With the early morning conditions , Indians could well peg back the Aussies with some quick wickets. Hail India!!

Battle of Perth 1

With the verbal battle between CA and BCCI over , the focus now shifts to the action down under in Perth. With Australia showing some discipline on the field , no sledging so far in the match and only genuine appeals and Indians putting up a fight on field rather off the field, this match is poised to signify positive cricket again. The focus is on whether Australia can manage to win without their usual sledging and mental game and if India can come out of the mental block of not winning on a pacy wicket of Perth. All in all a cracker of match in store. Hope the better team( for me India :)) wins.

Australia : Down Down

Australians are the champions, in one day cricket, test cricket and non-cricket. Yes, what happened in the one of the first test matches of the new year was NOT cricket. Right from the horrendous umpiring decisions ( a whooping 11 in number) to the 'sportsman spirit' shown by the Aussies have been unprecedented. And I sincerely hope no one repeats also. This Australian team has earned the dubious distinction of being the most 'aggressive' and unfair team I have ever seen play cricket.
When you have players who nick the ball with a loud noise and still stand their ground hoping umpires would rule them not out and the same player who has clearly grounded the ball while taking a catch off the pad appeals his heart out , you know something is not right and this is not a fair game. I had high degree of respect for Adam Gilchrist as he was one of the most honest and fair player in the Aussie team but when he appealed for Dravid's pad nick which would surely be visible to the keeper, it was clear to me, this team is all out in full strength in full cooperation to win the record 16th test by ANY means. Sincere appreciations to Anil Kumble and the Indian camp who have tacked the whole issue very nicely putting across their views in a very tactical way. Till last night I thought it was 14 men against the Indian team including the 2 ground and 1 third umpire, now it is clear it is a 15 member team, including the match referee. I mean how can you give a decision without conclusive evidence. And that too on Australian charges, who have been synonymous to sledging in the past,present and the future. This is not cricket and this series doesn't deserve to be finished. Indian team should call off this series and come back home and teach Australian board a lesson. Teams like Sri Lanka, Pakistan will endorse this move of Indian team if it happens as they have also been subject to hostile reactions.

In a nut shell, the cricket has lost in this game and an over aggressive and unruly 'mob' of men has won. Winning a match is not everything. Winning hearts is more important and Kumble's men have won that.

Australia Vs India : In words

Recently the relations between the Indian and Australian cricket team have gone from worse to worst. From the time India has beaten Aussies in the T20 world cup, there has been a downward slide in the relations between the two teams. But this is nothing new. Since a long time, the arch rivals of India have been Australia and not Pakistan according to me , because the matches played against the formers have been more thrilling than the later. But why this hue and cry now? Relations have touched an all time low now. With Symonds accusing of racist comments from a section of crowd and BCCI playing a deaf ear to the whole episode involving Sreesanth also. As you can't clap with one hand, I feel both the teams are to be blamed here. Sreeshant is to be blamed for staring at the batsman evey ball he bowls. Come on, not even a bowler of Wasim Akram's caliber can manage to dominate the batsman in every ball he bowls. Symonds giving out statements like Indians will have to pay back in Australia , clearly shows the kind of mentality they have. What does he mean, T20 champions have a lot to learn? Agreed he is a part of a champion side, but that doesn't give him rights to make such comments on other sides. With both sides captains and board giving a deaf ear to this whole episode, matters have turn worst. Australia may have won the series , but it is cricket as a whole which has been defeated in this whole series. It is more of a verbal battle than a battle with Ball and bat and the loser is of course cricket.

Me:A part of History

There are times when you are short of words but you have the strong urge within you to express. I did not know how to start this blog but then Shahrukh Khan came to my rescue with a statement of his. " I am a part of history". True indeed. Yesterday all those present in the Wanderers and all those who witnessed the breathtaking T20 finals sitting in their house or at office or wherever through whatever means are a part of history. India had surpassed arch rivals Pakistan in a humdinger by 5 runs , a match which went on till the last over and which was equally poised throughout the match. I bet there can't be any one who did not feel the pressure. Two teams knocked out at the first stage in the world cup held in West Indies, what would have one expected out of them. But destiny had different plans. A team going through crisis had in its fate the most coveted trophy of all. And what a way it was achieved. With 13 runs required of the last over and a very tense but firm Joginder Sharma began with a wide delivery all of us had our heart in our mouth. A dot ball followed and then a six on a full toss. Indians held their nerve and Joginder Sharma bowled the decisive ball which was a slower one and Misbah-Ul-Haq , the Pakistani Star of the day tried a backward scoop, one of the recently invented shots in one day cricket only to find Sreeshant who held on to the heaviest ball he had ever held in his life. He had weight of crores of Indian fans on his shoulders and his able shoulders did not fail India. As Misbah knelt on the ground out of disappointment the Indian celebrations began not only at the Wanderes but throughout the world. One of the sample of the celebration in Bangalore. A mob stopped a moving car in the middle of the night and asked everyone to shout "Hindustan zindabad" before letting them go.
The youth and freshness of the Indian team did the trick for me. The way each player backed each other and Dhoni held his nerves at all crucial junctures made us all witness history.
Jai Hind!!

Joys of Watching Cricket..Rediscovered!!

I must confess... After a really long long time I was tense during the last few overs of a cricket match and all that paid off. India pulled off a spectacular win to bounce back in the series and to enter the Mecca of Cricket with a confident frame of mind. We shouted and celebrated like kids after the match was over. Indians showed professional ruthless approach throughout their batting . Sachin and Saurav threw open the gates of heaven for India followed by sensible knocks from Gautam Gambhir and Dhoni. But the man who stole the show had to be Bangalore based Uthappa. (Bangalore is not famous for Uttappam but bisi belle bhath.) He played the gem of an innings under very tense circumstances maintaining his cool and ensuring India were home with just 2 balls to spare.
Hope India performs in the same spirit at the Lords and pulls of a win very similar to the one in Natwest trophy finals which we cannot still erase from out minds and heats.

India the SUPERPOWER

We hear this so often. India has come of age. India is a globally known super power these days and no one can ignore India anymore. But have we ever wondered how true is this?

Take some recent instances which prove this to be wrong. First, the episode of Shilpa Shetty and Jade. This incident still goes to prove that Indians are still facing racist remarks all around the world. This piece of news got all the attention as it was involving a big bollywood star like shilpa shetty. What if it was you or me?

Next, we can take the episode of Mohd. Haneef, who was framed by the australian authorities and when they released him due to mounting international pressure , we see an arrogant Australian Govt. who is refusing to apologise. They fail to recognize this as an insult to to a country and a community rather than an individual. At least, their co-citizen Ponting was reasonable enough to aplogize to Sharad Pawar after the incident during the finals of champions trophy.

And last, the present England-India cricket match, where England are unable to register the fact that they have both the luck and weather Gods pitted against them in the favor of India and are involving in sledging and all other unparliamentary behavior on the field. And to add to this the umpires don't seem to take notice of that at all.

All this makes me beleive that India still has a long way to go. For me, we have not gone much ahead of the station where Gandhi was thrown out of the first class compartment in South Africa more than a hundread years ago.

Future of Indian cricket

Headlines read " India NOT in world cup 2015". The story starts this way... India is out of the contention for playing in world cup 2015 after losing its final qualifying match with Canada in the ICC qualifying tournament held here in Sharjah. .......

And it continues with intricate details of the match played which are not of concern to us for this blog. Believe it or not I dream of reading this headline. I mean I yearn to have this piece of newspaper in my hand soon. Before you jump into conclusions of calling me a traitor or some one who hates cricket or some one who is pessimistic, I would like to explain my point.

I feel this should happen because the current Indian team, its management, coach (or no coach) and the selection process are all hopeless ( to put it very mildly). Ever wondered how many selection flaws keep happening and how poorly the richest cricket board in the world is managed. After 2007 world cup debacle we had the board taking some stern steps like linking performance with pay but for how long... Even before India played a single series they reverted back to their old ways of grading players into A,B and C grade and paying them according to their grade which God only knows was decided on which ancient match. Regarding the selection process, we know players are selected into the national team from the ranji and other domestic cricket matches.(* Conditions Apply) But how are players selected for ranji. To be a part of a prestigious cricket club in India you need to be at least from an upper middle class family. How many from the lower and lower middle class really get a fair chance to play and try for the ranji teams? And as soon as someone gets selected for ranji next target for him is to appear in the national team. And they make their debut at the age of around 20. So where is the bench strength of India team. Just to give an example how things should be , a player of Mike Hussey's caliber made his debut into international arena at the age of 30 + .

Coming back to my dream, the next day, BCCI is dissolved and all the money in it is used for conducting a national level talent competition for cricketers where anyone can participate and then a team is constituted for each ranji team from where the national team is picked up.(*Conditions Apply)

And then...........well lets not dream too much.:)


*: I am taking an ideal corruption free selection process into account for this.

Saluting the true Indian Spirit

To the question of which is the most memorable event of your life , he answers ( not in his exact words) " Removal of pain of a young girl affected by the polio and her ability to ride a bicycle after using the light weight Floor Reaction Orthosis made by using carbon-carbon material was the most memorable event in my life."

I am not talking about any hi-tech doctor , I am talking about our honorable President Dr. Abdul Kalam. ( Read: former President if you read it after July 25). This was spoken to a gathering of IBM employees as a part of their annual gathering called the INNOVATION AND LEADERSHIP FORUM held at Bangalore on the magical date of 6/6/06. Many believed it to be the date of Satan, but for me it was one of the happiest moments of my life. A day when I was really proud of my country.

Mr. Kalam spoke about IBM, its history,its founder, its path towards innovation for more than 45 minutes which concluded with a standing ovation from the more than 30000 people gathered there. Such was the power of his speech. He had gathered more information about IBM , than may be any of the IBMers gathered there.

Coming back to his favorite moment, he came about discovering this light weight material while doing some research for rocket launching while he was with ISRO. But he found true happiness when it came of use to a young girl who used artificial limb made of that material was able to ride by bicycle in front of him. Thats compassion according to me and thats what India has been showing to the outside world. His life can be an ideal example not only for Indians but for the whole world as to the fact that our origins have no relation with the heights we can reach in our life. And that the higher you reach the more compassionate,humble and gentle you become.

P.S: This is not one of the numerous mails getting circulated canvassing for a second term for Kalam as the President.

A peep into the future!

It is Dec 31 ,2022. Some amusing news about the year that went by.

Indian cricket team still on the look out for the correct "winning" combination for the next world cup in 2023.

Microsoft still holds 90 % of the desktop market with the latest version of windows. It has announced that it will not support Vista any more , however, migrating from vista to the new OS is not recommended. New OS needs to be installed from fresh.

US is still on the lookout for Osama Bin Laden who released 14 videos this year as compared to 13 last year warning the western countries of the growing power of Islam and Al Qaeeda.

US has set 2025 as the deadline for complete removal of troops from Iraq as there is still some political "imbalance" there.

After razing Pakistan, US has North Korea on its target list. Sources say.

Rajnikanth still is the biggest super star of the country at the age of 73. He still happens to be the biggest money spinner in the country.

Kamalhaasan still waiting for the right time to start his mega venture marudanayagam.

Vijay has remade the latest Burmese movie into Tamil which ran to full houses all across the state. In this film he plays a policeman disguised in the form of a milkman.

Amitabh Bachan still features in every third movie that comes out of Bollywood making him the busiest star in Bollywood.

The only post office in the state of Karnataka ( GPO Bangalore) vacated its main building and moved to a single room. This still is the largest post office among 14 post offices spread across the country employing more than 300 people throughout the country making it one of the largest PSU in the country after railways.

TCS declares that it will recruit close to 1,00,000 people this year for its new operational facility in Rajapallayam.

Land prices are set to fall next year. Claim experts. Land prices touched an all time high last year in Chennai and its suburbs with a ground costing more than 15 crores .

India continues its growth as the biggest outsourcing unit for US. India is now the 3rd biggest super power in the world after US and China.

Rahul Gandhi manages to draw crowds yet again in the UP election campaign but failed to woo voters to vote for him as he lost his election to the lok sabha from Rae bareilly.

BJP planning to conduct a Rath yatra from Delhi to Ayodhya to start the construction of Ram mandir in the disputed Ram janmabhoomi.

Google became the biggest company among all this year . it is a Fortune ONE company now.

Bangalore's traffic woes continues inspite of the successful completion of the metro train linking the entire city last year.


And as for me, I am still trying in vain to put on weight.