Dynasty Politics

Vir Sanghvi describes the issue of dynasty in Indian politics in the HT.

Farooq Abdullah is the second generation of the political dynasty founded by his father Sheikh Abdullah. (His son Omar is Chief Minister of J&K.) Prithviraj Chavan is from a well-known Maharashtra political family. Salman Khurshid’s father was a minister in Indira Gandhi’s government. Dayanidhi Maran is the son of Murasoli Maran, a minister in A.B. Vajpayee’s government and is a close relative of M. Karunanidhi. Selja is the daughter of former Union Minister Choudhary Dalbir Singh.

G.K. Vasan is the son of G.K. Moopanar. M.K. Azhagiri is the son of M. Karunanidhi. Parneet Kaur is the wife of former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. Ajay Maken is the nephew of noted Delhi leader, the late Lalit Maken. Bharatsinh Solanki is the son of former External Affairs Minister Madhavsinh Solanki. D. Purandeshwari is N.T. Rama Rao’s daughter………….

The author praises America for the rise Barack Obama. Its true and deserving. Despite this there are no shortage of family connections playing a major role in American politics. Here is a relevant piece in the NY Times.

Sitting in the Senate gallery on Tuesday as senators were sworn in by Dick Cheney, I saw plenty of lawmakers who had benefited from family.

Two Udalls were being sworn in, under the watchful eye of Stewart Udall. Mark Begich, the new senator from Alaska, is the son of a former Alaska congressman. The classy Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, son of the late Gov. Robert Casey, was there in a festive pink tie. John McCain, whose wife’s money and Arizona pull made his Senate election possible, looked on with a smile. Hillary, whose husband paved the way for her to join this club and run for president, chatted with colleagues. Jay Rockefeller wandered about, as did Chris Dodd, son of Senator Thomas Dodd. And Teddy Kennedy, walking with a cane, worked the room with his old brio.

It isn’t what your name is. It’s what you do with it. Or, in the case of W., don’t.

KKR Wins!

Shahrukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Ridders finally won a match. It had to happen. Sooner or later McCullum was going to strike and some team was going to suffer. It was Chennai’s turn. When McCullum gets going, boy he can be dangerous. Dada continues his struggle.  KKR can play spolier by beating RR in their final match.  Meanwhile, the fake IPL player has promised to reveal his identity tomorrow!

Apart from the brilliant batting by KKR, the other surprise of the day was Dhoni’s comment after the match. He said what his bowlers did was produce “one of the worst bowling efforts” he has seen.

After the last defeat again BRC he criticized the youngsters in the team for their fielding.

“Not really happy. We tried to win a game out of it. Our fielding has been suspect throughout the tournament. We are a safe fielding side, but not a brilliant fielding side. We have a lot of youngsters in the side who can’t throw or run all that well. We were clearly about 20 short. “

Is India’s Captain Cool losin’ it lately?

Thoughts on IPL 2.0

After a couple of weeks of the IPL in its new avatar in South Africa it is hard not to admit that it is far more exciting than the inaugural version held in India last year. If there is one glaring downside it is the size of the crowds.  A match played in front of 20,000 people is very different from  one played in front of 80,000+. Barring the size of the crowds IPL 2.0 is definitely far more exciting.

Bowlers Have a Chance

Unlike IPL 1.0 which was played on India’s dead pitches, the pitches in South Africa appear to have plenty in them for the bowlers. This is obvious when you look at the scores. Any score above 160 is huge plus. Besides, spinners have had a terrific run this time around. A veteran like Anil Kumble has become a force to reckon with. The duel between him and the hard hitting Yuvraj Singh was cricket at its best.

Matches Are Down to the Wire

One of the big pluses of this IPL has been the fact that most matches have come down to the wire making it that much more exciting.  If you miss the first 15 overs, the last five overs are bound to be worth watching especially in a close game.

Experience Counts

While veterans like Sachin, Dravid and Kumble have seen a fair amount of success the IPL, some of the newbies who had a great run last year like Asnodhkar, Dhinda, Gony and others have struggled. It is possible that their lack of success is result of limited exposure and inability to adapt quickly to the South African pitches/grounds. It is also possible that these youngsters will get their act together as the IPL progresses.

Wasted Big Bucks

Pieterson and Flintoff are easily the biggest disappointments among the big stars who were introduced for the first time in the IPL. Pieterson doesn’t recovered from his English captaincy mess and awarding him the BRC captainship was probably a wrong move. Flintoff seems to be eternally plagued by injuries. He never really clicked with the bat and it was embarrassing to seem him tonked around by the likes of Abhishek Nayar, a relative newbie.

KKR’s Downward Spiral

KKR’s damage was done well before the season started – John Buchanan’s blatant attempt to sideline Ganguly, the Fake IPL blogger, SRK’s clash with Gavaskar, the unavailability of Ponting etc. etc.  — all contributed to KKR’s poor performance this IPL. SRK has done little to help matters either. A post season clean up seems surely on the cards and seems necessary.

McGrath on the Bench!

Delhi’s decision to bench McGrath is baffling. The best part is that the team has done exceptionally well without him! Perhaps its  part of a plan to unleash him in the later games?  Nannes, Nehra and Sangwan have performed creditably throughout so its hard to justify dropping any of them. At best McGrath for Nehra perhaps?

An Indian Captain for an IPL Team Makes More Sense

Unless you have a captain known for his captaincy prowess (like Shane Warne), it makes no sense whatsoever to have a non-Indian captain.  Firstly,  each team can have only four non-Indian players.  Many non-Indian players have more experience playing T20 cricket and it makes sense to rotate those players and get the best out of them. KKR is now stuck with McCullum in the playing 11 though he has barely had any success with the bat.  Secondly, language and culture has a lot to do with leading the team. Some of the Indian players are not comfortable speaking fluent English. Its hard to imagine how a foreign captain can communicate effectively with them unless he has some gifted captaincy skills like Shane Warne seems to have. Thirdly, an Indian captain is bound to know local players much better. Kevin Pieterson for instance chose to repeatedly use Kallis to bowl at the death. Kumble on the other hand chose to bowl the penultimate over himself. Also, Pieterson barely used Vinay Kumar as a bowler in the match againts Punjab, though he is primarily a bowler, while Kallis bowled his full quota of four overs for a whopping 51 runs!

Ultimately, T20 is a crap shot

In the IPL any team can beat any other team (and this includes KKR, btw).  T20 is completely unpredictable. Unlike Test cricket and ODI cricket where performance has to be sustained over a longer period of time, T20 can change in the space of an over or two. There is little or no time to recover after the odd false move. Success in T20 calls for a huge slice of luck more so than in any other form of the game.

Specific strategies (multi-captain theory for instance, opening with a spinner, shot over the keeper) per se are still being worked out as this form of the game gains maturity. Dhoni has so far shown that his capataincy instincts can be equally brilliant in the T20 format. His move to bring in Suresh Raina in the CSK-Punjab was a master stroke. Shane Warne is brilliant as always. His one over to Badrinath on a turning track was an absolute treat from the master of spin bowling.  It was confirmation that given the right settings there is still room for sheer traditional cricketing class in T20s.  It will be interesting to see RR under Graeme Smith.

Pakistan in Denial

There are no shortage of articles on Pakistan these days.  There are many out there but this one summarizes things very well and has plenty of interesting links.

A Grand Conspiracy Theory From Pakistan

Asked, by the same pollsters, to say who they believed was behind the attacks in Mumbai, the largest number of Pakistanis pointed the finger at the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s intelligence service.

Sounds like hatred and dislike (and obsession) for India is not restricted to the political and miltary in Pakistan but has seaped through to the average man on the street.  At a time when Pakistan appears to be on the brink of being running over by extremists, its sad to see a country in denial and focused on the wrong threat.

 

Pakistan: Is the situation bad enough?

If media reports are to be beleived, Pakistan is in a terrible state and the situation is fast deteriorating.  Taliban is ready to take over.  Zardari’s days are numbered. The military is simply not doing enough to contain the extremist threat.

Here are two very interesting articles on the situation in Pakistan. The first is an editorial from the NY Times while the other is a view from India in the Hindustan Times.

60 Miles from Islamabad

Mr. Kayani complains that his troops lack the right tools to take on the militants, including helicopters and night-vision goggles. The army should have used some of the $12 billion it received from Washington over the last seven years to do just that, instead of spending the money on equipment and training to go after India.

When Attacked, We Must Hit Back (View from India)

General Musharraf is still blatantly hostile to India as his last rant at the India Today Conclave demonstrated. Asif Zardari has refused to help in the investigation of the Bombay attacks. Terrorists continue to be sent across the border to foment trouble in India. Far from following a liberal policy, the new civilian government has done deals with the Taliban and imposed the medieval Sharia law in parts of Pakistan.

All opinion polls suggest that the average Pakistani hates India, loves Osama bin Laden and believes that 9/11 was a Jewish plot to malign global Islam. Worse still, the evidence suggests that if you push the Pakistani masses about their true identity they would pick Muslim over Pakistani. Do you have to be a genius to see that the good neighbour policy has been an utter and complete disaster?

Hillary Clinton and team have their task cut out. The mess in Iraq is unaviodable at this stage. The situation in Afghanistan is being addressed by an increase in troops.  But what about Pakistan? Is the US going to wait until the damage is complete to react/respond?

Dhoni’s missed opportunity

I have been a huge fan of Dhoni and his approach to the Indian captaincy. But I think Dhoni missed a great opportunity to force a win in the last Test and drive home the point that he is a consistently brilliant captain who is fundamentally different from all other captains India has had in the past. This article captures this thought extremely well.

Man follows his passion for cooking

Check out this interesting story of a chef in NY. Originally from India, he went on the become a chef after a Bachelor’s in Biochemistry.

I’m out of the restaurant on weekends, and people at Tabla know not to call me unless they really need to. I spend that time at home with my family, cooking three meals a day. It drives my wife insane. She doesn’t understand why I can’t just relax and eat cold cereal. I tell her I don’t think of cooking as work. I really love what I do.

Movie Review: Subramaniapuram

Title: Subramaniapuram

Language: Tamil

Starring: Mostly newcomers

Director: Sasi Kumar

After quite a long time I watched a Tamil film on a flight. I knew nothing about this film. In fact, I had never heard of it. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise.  I don’t recall seeing any of the actors before either.

The film begins dramatically with a prisoner being released and stabbed as he walks out. The rest of the film is mostly in flashback, set in the early 80s in Madurai in Tamil Nadu. The plot revolves around four friends growing up in a small town. Their friendship and camaraderie is captured effectively throughout the film and this helps add to the twists in the plot. They remain unemployed and serve as sidekicks to a local aspiring politician. They soon get caught up in web of political rivalry, loyalty, betrayal and murder. The film depicts how unscrupulous politicians take advantage of unemployed youth in the countryside to accomplish their personal ambitions. Some romance is thrown in but in small measure and that makes it quite believable. There is a good bit of suspense that ties into the first scene.

The film is fast paced and engaging. The camera work is impressive and captures the small town feel sufficiently. The acting is adequate and the casting seems appropriate given that the actors are mostly new comers. The music director, James Vasanthan (also a new comer) deserves special mention for the song “kangal irrandal” — an extremely catchy tune.

Overall, an excellent debut film by Director Sasi Kumar.