IPL, greed, big money and an icon from Mumbai..!

Sachin Tendulkar

SHANTANU GUHA RAY writes in Tehelka:

IT’S THE open secret no one wants to acknowledge: the IPL is not about cricket. The ugly controversy surrounding Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor and IPL chief Lalit Modi — over Tharoor’s friend Sunanda Pushkar owning 4.9 percent free sweat equity in the Kochi team that Tharoor helped put together — is merely a warning sign pointing to a much deeper dirt pit that comprises in equal parts big money, politics, glamour, greed, sex, drugs and intense backroom jostling.
 
The further irony is that, according to highly reliable sources in the cricketing management fraternity, the 4.9 percent free sweat equity Sunanda Pushkar is being pilloried for does not even belong to her. A mere .5 percent is reserved for Pushkar. Disturbingly, the rest belongs — off paper and on trust — to two iconic cricketing giants, one of who is still playing for the Mumbai IPL team. This free equity is the quid pro quo they demanded for helping put the Kochi team and its promoters together — not a rank corruption perhaps in the larger scheme of things, but certainly an impropriety.

Who is that iconic cricketing giant still playing for the Mumbai team?


Read the full article here. 
and Lalit Modi charged with 'Betting & Laundering'

When London, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong can become hub and house of Islamic Finance why not Mumbai or Cochin?

H Abdur Raqeeb explains finer points of Islamic Banking to Mr Naro Naramain Meena. At left is Engr Md Saleem

A delegation concisting of Engineer Muhammed Saleem, President, Jamaat e Islami Hind, Rajasthan and Mr. H Abdur Raqeeb, General Secretary, Indian Centre for Islamic Finance met Naro Naramain Meena, Ministry of Statefor Finance in New Delhi to discuss the feasibility of Interest Free Islamic Banking in India.

Mr. Engineer Saleem submitted a Memorandum on behalf of Rajasthan Muslim Forum, which is an umbrella organisation consisting of Jamaat e Islami Hind, Mansuri Panchayath, All India Majlise Mushawara, Progressive Muslim Front, Indian Union Muslim League, Association for Protection of Civil Rights and host of other organisations and associations. Memorandum requested to accept the recommendation of Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Chairman, Committee on Financial Sector Reforms to create a framework for Interest Free banking in our great country.

Mr. Saleem urged in the Memorandum that Islamic banking is not only for Muslim but also helpful for Minorities and Marginalised and shared the recent statement of MS Swaminathan, Father of Green revolution that Islamic Banking can be solution for farmer’s suicide in Vidarbha.

Mr. H Abdur Raqeeb added that 40% customer of Malaysia and 20 % customer of Islamic bank Britain are Non Muslims. 

Mr. H Abdur Raqeeb also submitted the important documents related to the methods and techniques adopted by the Modern and Secular countries to create level playing field for conventional and Islamic Banking and argued that when London, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong can become hub and house of Islamic Finance why not Mumbai or Cochin?

The honourable Minister assured that he would go through the documents in detail and will have discussion with his officials and higher authorities regarding the issue

Read more. 
Read Plea to expedite interest-free Islamic banking a report published in The Hindu

IPL = Indian Paisa Loot!!

P Sainath

P. Sainath has nailed it on its head. He writes in The Hindu:

Who stand to gain from the public wet-nursing of the IPL? 

Among others, four gentlemen who make the Forbes Billionaires List of 2010. Three of them are team owners and one is a title sponsor. 

All dollar billionaires and long-time residents on the Forbes List. 

Then there are the mere millionaires in the shape of Bollywood stars. For all these and other worthy people, governments bend over backwards to make concessions. Even as they slash food subsidies in a period of rising hunger. Big time partying is an integral part of the IPL show. 

Only look who is paying for that. Street argot has already begun to brand the IPL as Indian Paisa League or, more directly, India Paisa Loot.

To read the full article, click here.

Cell phones outnumber toilets..!

Zafar Adeel

இரண்டுக்கே வழி இல்லாத போது..!

நம் நாட்டில் கழிப்பிடங்களின் எண்ணிக்கையை விட கைபேசிகளின் எண்ணிக்கை அதிகமாகி விட்டுள்ளது!
ஒரு IPL போட்டியைப் பார்ப்பதற்கு 40 ,000 செலவிடுகிறவர்கள் ஆயிரக்கணக்கில் இருக்கின்ற நாட்டில் வெறும் வயிற்றோடு படுக்கப் போகின்றவர்களும் கோடிக்கணக்கில் இருக்கத் தானே செய்கின்றார்கள்!

People in India, the world's second most populous country, have more access to a mobile telephone than to a toilet, according to a new UN report.

"It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," Zafar Adeel, Director of United Nations University's Canada-based think-tank for water, the Institute for Water, Environment and Health, said.

The report is produced by experts who prescribe ways to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on sanitation by 2015.

They also urge the world community to set a new target beyond the MDG (which calls for a 50 percent improvement in access to adequate sanitation by 2015) to the achievement of 100 percent coverage by 2025.
Recent UN research in India shows roughly 366 million people (31 percent of the population) had access to improved sanitation in 2008.
Other data, meanwhile, shows 545 million cell phones are now connected to service in India's emerging economy. The number of cell phones per 100 people has exploded from 0.35 in year 2000-01 to about 45 today.
To read the full news click here

IPL, corrupt crorepatis and hunger!

Shashi Tharoor - Lalit Modi 

Do you know the cost of a ticket to watch a IPL match? It ranges from Rs. 1000 to Rs 40,000. The exorbidant rates have not dithered the audience who throng in thousands match after match. The economics of  IPL is mind baffling. With the Shashi Tharoor - Lalit Modi saga going murkier and murkier the IPL has been named as Indian Paisa League by a குறும்புக்கார TV channel.
Here is the other side of the story. You would not stop your tears when you read it. Harsh Mander writes in The Hindu:

 ‘Half the week we are able to eat roti or rice with either vegetable or dal. The other half, it is just roti, or rice boiled with salt and turmeric. But there are four or five days in a month when there is no food, and we have little option except to fast. If there is any food, we give it to our children, adding a lot of water to fill their stomachs. Any additional food goes to our men folk, because we women are used to staying hungry'.

But the children's bellies are still empty, and they are restless and clamour for more food. ‘It is difficult for us to bear their weeping', the women continue. ‘When the wailing of infants gets too much, we lace our fingertips in tobacco or wild intoxicants and give the fingers to the babies to suck. It helps them sleep even with nothing in their stomachs. If they are small, we beat them until they sleep, but as they grow older, we try to teach them how to live with hunger. It is a lesson that will equip them for a lifetime. Because we know that hunger will be with us the rest of our lives.'

To read the full article click here.