while the debate was hotting up with illogical allegations and counter-allegations (which you normally associate with our political parties), bang came an allegation from the congress party member that BJB has no right to talk about price rise, since it was during the BJB rule (for 7 days) in the state, bicycle prices were increased by Rs. 300. this was unacceptable to congress party because, they felt the price rise of bicycle will deter many kids from buying it and hence will affect their education, since they can not go to school. hmmmmmm……does it sound funny enough to you ?

well wait then. because i am going to bring in the issue of terrorism here. recently we have seen terrorists using bicycle as weapons in their heinous act. as we know in the jaipur blast terrorists have used 10 bicycles which they had bought new from stores in the city. you might be thinking what has this issue of terrorism has got to do with the above discussion on TV. but think again. its BICYCLE. i bet you got it.

so what do you think now ? i am sure you can’t stop but applaud the then BJP govt in the state for their farsightedness. i mean they did increase the price of the bicycle to make it less accessible to the terrorists or at least to make sure that the cost of a bomb blast in india does not come cheap.

hail/ hell……….politicians of india.

am not an expert. but as an avid cricket enthusiast, i have seen enough of the game to say a few points which may have led to such an ordinary performance by the KKR.

sourav ganguly using this tournament to get a call back into the indian ODI side. this was evident, agree or not. he looked more eager to prove that he is better than laxman and dravid. this is the reason he forced himself to play shots, more often than not, and got himself out in the process. remember what he said when he scored an odd 90 runs in a match……hope that indian selectors are watching. ganguly is a prolific batsman and could have done lot better had he not used this tournament as a stepping stone to get back his blue (indian) jersy.

KKR always lacked a player with all-round capability. like pathan and james hopes for kings XI punjab, bravo and pollock for mumbai indians, morkel for chennai super kings, shane watson for rajasthan royals. if you thinking that ganguly, agarkar and laxmi ratan shukla are all-rounders, no they are not. you can not count them among the names that i have mentioned above. certainly not.

too much dependence on local players for the domestic player quota of 8. especially on the batting front. except ganguly i don’t think there are any other domestic batsman on that team who can win you a match. an indian (not just a bengal player) batsman would have definitely strengthened the batting line up. even the presence of manoj tiwari, a bengal player in that batting line up would have helped enormously. guys like laxmi, akash chopra and debabrata have done well, but certainly they can’t fill the shoes of a rohit sharma, robin uthapa, gautam gambhir or even suresh raina and mohd kaif. all in all KKR lacked a good indian batsman in the batting department.

to discuss the above point a little further, is the cap on the total bidding amount($ US 5 million) restricted ganguly (since he was present in the auction) and the management to buy a good indian batsman or ganguly deliberately decided not to. why i am raising this point is because of my notion that ganguly just wanted to prove, he is better than the current bunch of indian ODI and T20 players and so he can win without any of them. i may be wrong, but this has costed KKR a semi-final berth in the IPL.

how come mumbai indians and kings XI punjab could always bring in a replacement for the foreign player’s they lost due to their respective national assignments. i am talking about players like shaun marsh and bravo. why did not KKR do so when the likes of ponting, gayle and bredon left?

3 batsmen and 1 bowler quota of foreign players was always wrong for KKR, especially when gul had to sit out because of shoiab akhtar playing. if six batsmen can not score enough, playing seven batsmen never helps. imagine gul bowling 1 or 2 decent overs from those 8 overs bowled in that rain affected match against chennai super kings, when shoiab got injured after bowling 2 overs and went out. chennai super kings own that match by just 3 runs, decided via D/L method.

these are just a few things which i feel have gone wrong with the KKR. there also have been few positives in that team. ashoke dhinda as a bowler has done supremely well and i hope he continue to do so. also it would be unfair if i do not name the wicket keeper wridhiman shah. he comes along as a fine weeket keepr and a more than handy batsman.

5 wins out of 12 matches for KKR. and now 2 more to go. as i have said, a semi-final place now is virtually ruled out. but the KKR now has a lot to play for, and that is, the pride of its fans and supporters.

about me……well once a KKR fan, always a KKR fan. little disappointed now, but you can count me cheering at the top of my lung in the remaining two matches.

the president, the prime-minister, the home minister and other leaders of various political parties strongly condemn (wish only if they can softly act than strongly condemning) the attack on civilian people and express their deepest condolences to those departed and their aggrieved families.

our vastly inefficient police (we are still following the british era police act) will try hard to find some clues as to identify which terrorist group is involved.

forensic science experts and bomb squad will examine the blast site and talk about the highly explosive ingredients used in the bomb. hence the conclusion arrived will be, its a meticulously planned attack and it can’t be operated by just any terrorist group but a terrorist group with external (read pakistan) help.

our ‘breaking news’ hungry media will repeatedly show those clippings of the blast site with dead bodies scattered around and blood just everywhere…….(why they do that ?…..your guess is as good as mine). and then will follow their analysis with a bunch of idiots and hypocrites (read politicians) blaming each-other. though at the end they all will agree and praise and thank the people for showing such a great tolerance level and appeal for calm in the times to follow.

our intelligence agencies will take a number of people into their custody for questioning and what follows is release of a few sketches through media of suspected terrorists involved.

with sketches in hand our security agencies will search the whereabouts of these terrorists……..until its time enough for these terrorists to choose their next target and strike horror again.

a successful person is a happy person. so i can imagine these terrorist groups laughing their heart out. you ask why ?……i say look at their success rate in india. our system has always failed in foiling any terror attack. instead we love to play the blame-game. state blaming central agencies not informing the state agencies in advance about the attacks…….and central agencies blaming state govt for not acting in time. its a ridiculous indian custom of blaming the other for failure. india is probably the most and the longest victim of terrorism. but we still have not managed to put forth a national agency to deal with terrorism single handedly so that we can avoid the blame game. minority(read muslim) appeasement policy (do terrorist have a religion?) by political parties has not helped much in establishing a hard and strong law in dealing with people convicted of terror acts.

its time for people ruling the country, poeple on whose hands the security of innocent lives rest, to answer. everything in life has a maximum point and certainly the tolerance level of indian people has reached there. unless we act fast, these terrorist groups are having the last laugh.

note: the above sketch is of a suspect involved in the bomb blast in jaipur. if you have any clue regarding his whereabouts please contact the local police station of your area.

“there are 350 million people in india who are classified as middle class. thats larger than our entire population. when you start getting wealth you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so the demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”

huh. can you imagine what was that fella thinking before making such statements ? oh…wait. we can not and certainly should not expect mr. bush to think before saying or doing anything. he is just incapable of doing so. poor guy, does not even know what he is saying. forgive him for that. but whats appalling to see is statements supporting this reason is coming out from several US leaderships. they have attributed the rising food prices to the increase in food demand from india and china. they cant be serious. can they? this is height of hypocrisy. for a country like US of A, whose per capita consumption would be roughly 10 times of india’s per capita consumption, they should look within before they advise.

one can not deny the fact that food prices all over the world are soaring. we need to find a solution soon, before it turns into a crisis and people die out of starvation. but you certainly can’t blame india or china for this. rather we should look into the matter and find the real reason.

tell you, all these statements from american leaderships emanating from the fact that, indian govt has banned export of food items. this is not something unusual considering the domestic inflation has also reached all time high. so the govt has no option but to ban exports and increase availability of food items in the domestic market. increasing food supply can help them control inflation and reduce food prices to some extent. specially when elections in india are due soon, govt can not afford to let the domestic consumers suffer because of rising food prices. its a natural practice for all the economies to safeguard their domestic interest first and thats what the indian govt is doing.

its non of mr. bush’s business to worry about what and how much do indians eat as long as we don’t ask america to supply us food. as india continue to develop at a fairly higher growth rate, its logical that its huge middle class will have more wealth and purchasing power. this will push the demand higher and put pressure on prices. hence, mr. bush work towards increasing your domestic supply of food items and stop joking.

well inflation rate moving above 7 is certainly something to be worry about. but its still not something that warrants such over wild imaginations of our opposition leaders of a doomsday situation. the hype around rising prices seems more of politics than economics. at the same time govt’s blame on a difficult global situation to this price rise can not be accepted fully. i mean not that its baseless, but there is no gain in saying that high inflation rate in india is a reflection of global rise in commodity and crude oil prices.

india is a fast growing developing economy. any economy experiencing such a high growth, unfortunately has to bear with price rise. its a fairly common trade-off between growth and inflation. as income of individuals increases due to high growth and this puts pressure on prices. this is demand driven inflation. but is this the reason behind current price rise in india. well, not exactly. primary reason behind rise in food prices in india is less supply. our agricultural productivity is miserable. investment in improving agricultural productivity is far less than what is required. this has resulted in low yields compared to other emerging economies like china. also govt encouraging export of agricultural products has resulted in low supply in domestic markets. apart from this, inherent inefficiencies in our public distribution system has also not helped in controlling price rise.

now our govt has taken certain monetary (increasing CRR and interest rate) as well as fiscal (barring exports of rice and other food items, reducing duty on edible oil imports etc) measures to bring a halt in price rise. these are all short term measures. though it will help in reducing inflation to a certain extent, its impact on our growth will be negative. hence, govt has to seriously think about increase in our agricultural productivity by investing in agricultural research and marketing, improving the financial condition of farmers, etc.

the maharashtra govt believes that indian culture and values are offended by sex education in schools. thats why they have decided that children should not be taught about various aspects of human sexual behavior in school. and they have banned it in all schools across the state including CBSE and ICSC. this decision of the state govt was supported by all our ignorant, stupid, insane, wicked, nescient and inefficient politicians, cutting across party lines. they seem to pay no attention to the concerns of educationists or parents on this issue. and yeah, they would not agree for an open debate on this because they believe through ban the issue will be solved. maharashtra is home to around one in five of all people living with HIV in india. this ban would certainly make things worse.

now…………how and from where children are going to learn about human sexual behavior? we all know that indian parents rarely discuss matters related to sex openly with their children. so like all their previous generations, todays children also have no option but to discover the facts of life for themselves through experiments or watching kama sutra dvd.

at a time when around 3.6 million indians are living with HIV, when india dreams of becoming a global super power with a liberal and progressive culture,

1. how justified is the maharashtra govt in baning sex education?
2. should we trust our politicians dealing with this issue, when all of them are fuckin interested in pleasing certain vote banks?

have your say.

more on IPL. well, its 8 cricket teams fighting it out over 44 days, paying 56 matches in all on home and away basis. with most of the best cricketers around the world playing, it will be pretty tough competition.

Among these 8 teams i will be rooting for kolkata knight riders. choice for me is simple. dada aka sourav ganguly is leading the side. also knight riders have some prominent faces in ricky ponting, chris gayle, brendon mccullum, shoaib akhtar and the current indian sesnsation ishant sharma.

while there is still some time for the IPL to start, you can start playing your own crickets and win some fantastic prizes too.

1. log on to airtel indian fantasy league
2. sign up and choose your team of 16 players among the pool
3. pick your playing 11
4. and score points based on your players’ scores in IPL matches.

to know more on how to play click here.

all the best and hope you win many prizes.

but come june, things are going to change. all packets of tobacco products sold in india are required to carry pictorial warnings in a bid to deter people from smoking. in this regard the union health ministry has issued the final notification. the notification says,

“every person engaged directly or indirectly in the production, supply, import and distribution of tobacco products should ensure that every package has the specified health warning. the warnings will have to occupy 40% of the principal display area of the pack. none of the elements of the specified warning are severed, covered or hidden in any manner when the packet is sealed. no package can be sold unless it carries the health warnings.”

the ministry has also finalized on a set of images to be used on the packages.

hands down you will agree with me that these images look gruesome.

now i don’t know, how i will react when i see these on my packet of smoke? but my question is, why does the government bully smokers in this way? not undermining the health risks involved with smoking, ultimately, it comes down to an individual’s right to choose when it comes to personal risk. i have only two points to make here.

• if the government is really worried about health issues, would it not be doing the same exercise of putting pictorial warnings on bottles of alcohol? but our government does not seem to be thinking about that. the truth is alcohol lobbying groups are much stronger and the govt does not want to offend them.
• and if smoking is really so dangerous and anti-social, why does not the government make it illegal? you know they won’t do it. simply because they generate huge amounts of revenue in excise duty from tobacco products. to make smoking illegal means, they will loose out on a huge sum of revenue.

have anything to say ? drop a comment.