Only if you knew!!

(As imagined by me from a lower class Indian kid, who is poor, illiterate, without a future, exploited and has no clue what to do. To the average middle class Indian who is educated, employed, and making his mark in the world)

The story of my struggles with life,
Never reaches you!
I will be glad only if you knew,
Maybe just a few!!

The numerous tears I have been shedding,
Never tells my story to you!
Only if you knew that I was the future,
Which was dreamt of by Nehru!!

That I use mud both for playing and hunger,
Never touches you!
Only if you could bring me some toys,
Red, green or blue!!

That I have to work as soon as I can,
Never jolts and scares you!
Only if you knew that millions,
Like me are waiting for a rescue!!

The distance between books and me,
Never might have bothered you!
Only if you could see my dreams,
Of going to school and having a guru!!

The jingling of the songs in my head,
Never reaches you!
Only if you could hear the music,
And dance a few steps, too!!

I am waiting for you to come,
To show me a future new!
Where I can play in colorful clothes,
Maybe even get a new hairdo!!

I jump in joy and smile when,
I believe my dreams can be true!
I am waiting for that day to come,
Only if you knew!!

World Cup predictions – Ind and Aus my favorites

The coveted trophy

The coveted trophy

As the ICC World Cup starts in under two weeks on what are going to be batsman friendly pitches of the subcontinent, a lot of records are going to be broken and new ones made. Considering the small grounds of the subcontinent and the hot weather, it is expected that bowlers will take the heat and a lot of batting records are to be made. Below I am trying to predict some important statistics and records that this world cup might see. I will evaluate these figures again at the end of the world cup.

There are 14 teams participating this time in the World Cup hosted by India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. There will be 49 matches in total, two less than the 2007 world cup. The format will be similar to the 1996 World Cup, with a knockout round of quarter finals, semi finals and a final after the round robin league of two groups of 7 teams each. The tournament starts on 19th Feb 2011 and ends with the final on 2nd Apr 2011. Lets now get to the predictions…

  • Most sixes in a single over – I reckon there will be at least two overs during the tournament where all balls of the over will be hit for sixes. There was one such instance during the 2007 WC.
  • Most sixes in an innings by team – My bet is that there will be more than 25 sixes hit in one or more of the innings. India and SA hit 18 sixes in an innings in 2007 WC
  • Most sixes in an innings by 1 player – Ten, yes at least one player will 10 sixes in an innings in this WC. Watch out for Pathan, Afridi, Pollard and others
  • Most sixes in tournament – I think the tally will be around 25 sixes by any one player.
  • Fastest Fifty – 20 or less balls
  • Fastest 100 – 65 or less balls
  • Highest Total – My bet is there will be a minimum of five 400 plus innings in this WC
  • Highest Individual Score – I am sure Sachin’s 200 not out will be equaled or bettered in this WC, either by the GOD himself or somebody else.
  • Hat-Tricks – I am counting for only 1 or 2 hat tricks in this event due to the batsman friendly pitches
  • Most Wickets in WC – I think the top contenders are Steyn, Malinga, Muralitharan, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Anderson, Brett Lee and Sohail Tanvir with the highest number of wickets going to be between 22-25
  • Most Runs – My top bets are Sachin Tendulkar, Gambhir, Hashim Amla, Sangakara, Jayawardene, Misbah Ul Haq, J Trott, Shane Watson and Michael Hussey with the tally being somewhere between 650-700 runs
  • Best strike rate with runs over 300 – My bet is the highest strike rate for players scoring 300 or more runs to be about 125-135

My line up for the semi finals would be Australia v South Africa and India v England with Sri Lanka and Pakistan being wildcards, and Australia / India being my favorites to lift the trophy.

Now, after the cup is over I will again go over these predictions and compare them with the actual statistics. Obviously there will be some surprises, some new records created, some disappointing performances and some consistent ones. Let me know your comments on these predictions and we will see how they pan out over the whole tournament.

My weekly tweets archive for the week ending 2011-02-07

  • Life is the best school. God is the best teacher. Problem is the best assignment. Failure is the best revision. #
  • Remembering the Bandipur ride last January… Eager to do a long ride again…… http://fb.me/R20FXPz1 #
  • The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have. -Norman Peale #
  • You just can't beat the person who won't give up." – Babe Ruth #
  • A poem I wrote on Waste Management recently… http://fb.me/yWeYNb6W #

The India of Today

We, as a country, are passing through exhilarating times. The country has made tremendous progress in almost every sector in the last 20 years. Our GDP growth rates is one of the highest in the world, and tipped to beat China by 2015. A large percentage of our population is young and beaming with confidence. A recent survey showed Indians are among the most happy people and with a positive outlook towards the future. You can sense this on people’s faces when you step out on the roads. Whether it is the lower class Indian, or one from the many segments of our huge middle class, you can sense a feeling of purpose to their lives. They are working hard to make the future of their dreams come true. Even during the recession, our industry leaders were confident of an outstanding economic future for India.

Technology has led this resurgence of a new India. Our software industry has made the whole world stood up and took notice. Many of our companies can be found in global rankings. High performing individuals and entrepreneurs have proved themselves, over the world. The alumni of the IITs are respected even outside the country. They have excelled in their chosen field and send huge amounts of money back to India. Our diaspora accounts for one of the highest remittances to their home country. Our space program has made tremendous progress. We are launching satellites of many European countries too, and have our own mission to the moon. We have missiles with long range capability from land, air and sea alike. We are capable of defending ourselves, and the world views us as a responsible nuclear power. Our telecom industry has connected the nook and corner of the country like never before. And we have the lowest prices for telecom anywhere in the world. Our medical technology is second to none, with people from the West frequently coming to India for their medical needs as well as tourism.

In the world of sports, we have had some distinguished names too. Sachin Tendulkar has broken almost every record of batting in both Test and One-Day cricket. We have seen legends like Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Saurav Ganguly in the last decade and it has changed the way our cricket team is perceived by the cricketing world. We have moved from underdogs to Number One in Test and Number Two in One Day rankings. Vishwanathan Anand has been winning World Chess Championship for many years now. Sania Mirza in Tennis and Saina Nehwal in Badminton have made a name of themselves and set an example for women athletes in India. Pankaj Advani and Geet Sethi are among the best in Billiards and Snooker. Abhinav Bindra won the first individual gold medal in the Olympics. Our performance in the recently concluded Commonwealth Games was our best ever.

The Gap in Today's India

The Gap in Today's India

In arts, our movie industry is the largest movie churning industry in the world. Our actors are going international now, with Irfann Khan and Anil Kapoor leading the way. Aishwarya Rai has already made her mark on the international scene. Amitabh Bachhan, Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan are well known outside India. Indian movies are screened across almost every country in the west today. AR Rehman, Gulzar and Rosul Pookkutty have just won the oscars. AR Rahman’s credibility is known on the international scene. Indian writers such as Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth, Kiran Desai and Arvind Adiga have sold more books and won more prizes outside the country. Kiran and Arvind have won the Man Booker Prize in the last 5 years.

However, most of India and Indians are still not a part of all these accomplishments. We have not achieved much progress on the dreams of our founding fathers, the dreams of eradicating poverty, illiteracy and ill-health and empowering one and all to achieve the best they can. It is hard to believe that despite of all the progress and advancement in technology we have the largest pool of poor in the world. That we have 350 million illiterate people in this information age speaks volumes of the gaps we have created in our society. We have 128 million people who don’t have access to drinking water and a whopping 839 million people don’t have access to sanitation. More people in India have a mobile phone than access to toilets, showing the irony.

Health facilities and health awareness is almost nill if go away from the major cities. There are 1600 deaths daily from diarrhea and 750 from TB, both totally curable and avoidable by international standards. We have the best malls with the best brands for food and dining, then why are 51% of Indians malnourished? We export the best engineers to the whole world, then why does our primary schools suffers from a lack of teachers? While we have sprawling mega cities coming up, why do we still have so many homeless people? Delhi can boast the best airport and metro rail in the country and many other cities are following suit, still why even basic infrastructure like roads, power, water is missing from rural India? When our urban youth can choose from Nike or Adidas or Reebok shoes, why do 800 million Indians live on less than Rs 2000 per month, and 300 million live on less than Rs 550 per month?

These two views of our country have often left me bewildered. Gandhi and Nehru dreamed for an equal society with social and economic equality for all Indians. While we have made tremendous progress, the gap between the rich and the poor have only widened. In the first 40 years of independence, Nehruvian politics, inspired from Russian model of governance, miserably failed to alleviate the social status of Indians while the whole world marched ahead. Opening up of the economy in 1991 allowed India to make whatever progress it has made today, but has made very little difference to the rural and unprivileged sections of the society.  Corruption in politics and lack of bold leadership has created a vacuum for somebody who could champion the cause of the neglected Indian.

Having said that, I believe that with the kind of optimism around, all this can change, and within my lifetime itself. In the next 20 years, we will add 241 million people in working age population, compared to Brazil’s 18 million and China’s 10 million. Japan will lose 13 million in the same period. I am totally confident of the ability of 241 million optimistic, confident youth to change the future of our nation. The youth of India needs to take motivation from the famous words of George Bernard Show “Some men see things as they are and ask why; I dream of things that never were and say, Why Not?” Our youth needs to stand up to the challenge of what lies ahead and make this nation a better place to live in. And to make any change we need great leaders, who can dream big and execute their visions in reality. This might be a long journey of hard work, commitment, confidence and sacrifice, but can give us the sweet results of prosperity, justice and equality which our fore-fathers dreamed of.

Intrusive Advertisements in Cricket

When Ten Sports bought the telecast rights for international cricket in SA recently for $70-75 million, it stage the stage for one of the most intrusive advertising campaigns ever seen on cricket telecasts in India. The recently concluded India – SA series saw advertisements like never before, with the romantic cricket lover suffering the most. The above mentioned series saw intrusive (some might call it innovative) advertising such as L-shaped advertising which reduces the size of the cricket telecast, the two rectangle boxes right behind the keeper (shown on TV, not actually on ground) and advertisements bursting out of the ground (again using animation) during live action. All this made the cricket lover miss the most important moments of the match. For example, in a recent match, when Yusuf Pathan was dismissed at a crucial moment, I had to wait 3 overs to see his reaction to the dismissal as the advertisements followed right after his dismissal not even waiting to show his reactions or the opposition celebrating.

Many people in the advertising and broadcasting business are concerned about the extremely high prices at which TV rights are auctioned and sold. Since the rights are sold as exorbitantly high prices, the TV channels face the pressure of generating revenue through ad sales since the subscription rates are very low in India. They are running a business and not a charity, and hence they have to make sure every second is monetized to recover the TV rights price and generate profit for them.

Purists / cricket lovers, on the other hand, argue that while it may be fine to show advertisement between overs and at the fall of wickets, intrusive advertising while the cricket action is on actually takes away from the experience of watching the game. These advertisement include placement of animated display advertisements (sometimes even with sound) during the game itself. Their point of view is that cricket boards need to strictly mention at the time of selling broadcast rights what kinds of advertisements are allowed so that the quality of cricket is not compromised.

Intrusive advertisements in cricket telecasts

Intrusive advertisements in cricket telecasts

Another issue which plagues the Indian broadcasting industry is very low subscription fees paid by the customer compared to international markets. The price the consumer pays to watch the same channel in the UK or Australia is five to six times the amount paid by the Indian subscriber, leaving advertising as the only way to recover the costs. Moreover, India is a very price-sensitive market, and maybe the Indian consumer (most of them) doesn’t mind the advertising as long as they have to pay the minimum amount to watch it.

So what could be the solution to this problem which is peculiar in the Indian context. One option is to set up clear guidelines by the Indian broadcasting industry and the BCCI about the kind of advertising allowed. They can even limit the number of minutes of advertising per hour like FIFA does, but that might be an extreme step and not feasible in the Indian context. Another option could be to introduce a new ad-less high quality broadcasting option with high subscription fees for the purist. This telecast will not interrupt cricket action but consumers will have to put their hands in their pockets to watch this. People in the broadcasting industry are very skeptical of the success of such an option considering the Indian audience.

But as in everything else, a balance has to be find between showing quality cricket telecast and showing enough advertising to generate revenue for the TV channels. Maybe the BCCI needs to fix a maximum price for the rights auction at which enough advertisements can be shown without affecting the quality of cricket action. Recently Ten Cricket was given a show-cause notice by the Indian government for showing intrusive advertisements during the recent India vs SA series. Timely action by the regulators and specifying the right guidelines by the cricket boards can go a long way in ensuring a quality cricket telecast for the cricket lover.