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Badri's Tamil thoughts
Ganesh's Happily Haphazard
Nitin's Acorn
Prabhu's Pethals
Raghu the reluctant Delhiite
Samanth's blahg
Sankhya the busy idler
Srini the movie critic
Rabble Rousing Random Ramblings by S Jagadish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Business
How does CK Prahalad hope to change the world?
If you have the patience, here is Diamond Cluster's report on off-shoring
Forbes Magazine has come out with the 2000 leading companies.
Cricket
Soon, there may be a mathematical answer to the omnipresent captain's headache, what to do if I win the toss?
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Cricket
A historic day yesterday for Indian cricket, with Virender Sehwag becoming the first Indian to hit a Test triple-century, missing out on being the fastest recorded triple century by a couple of balls. Sehwag is today foremost among the players who bring crowds into cricket, others of his ilk being Adam Gilchrist, Chris Cairns, Brett Lee, Shoaib Akhtar, Shane Warne etc. Three years ago when Sehwag made his test debut against South Africa on a bouncy track, batting in the middle order, it was difficult to foresee him having a half decent test career. I for one surely thought he was totally unsuited to test cricket, with his technical problems guaranteed to be exposed by half decent bowlers. I'm sure many readers also shared this sentiment. Crucially though, Sehwag didnt think so. By not changing his natural game, he has shown that technical finesse and correctness only takes you some distance, what is important is having the right attitude. He started quite well, with a 150 ball century on debut, imitating several of Tendulkar's upper-cuts over third man. Then he got pulled up by Mike Denness for over appealing, and his exclusion saved a major cricket crisis. He missed the first test against England at Mohali and did nothing of note in the second. However it was the third test which made me sit up and begin to admire Sehwag's batting.
All through the series, England's strategy was based on choking up runs by using the spinner Giles as a defensive bowler, bowling left-arm over the wicket, using blatantly negative but far-from illegal tactics. Most of the Indian batsmen couldn't score freely, as is evident from the strike-rates of the top order Indian batsmen: 49 for Tendulkar, 28 for Dravid, 41 for Laxman, 34 for the law firm of Das & Dasgupta and 44 for the captain Ganguly. Sehwag alone bucked the trend. He had a strike-rate of 70. The way he went after Giles in the last Test, making 70 in around 90 balls was really thrilling to watch. He swept, cut, pulled, hoisted and even reverse swept him on a few occasions. This was the test which convinced me that Sehwag really did have it in him to be successful in tests. As I said earlier, it was just about the attitude. See ball, will hit. Simple.
Since then he has gone from strength to strength and made test hundreds at Trent Bridge, Mohali, Bombay, Melbourne and now Multan. His century at Melbourne was a thrill-a-minute movie. Audacious in its planning (if any) and execution, on a dicey wicket which helped the quicks. He explained his dismissal, slogging down long-on's throat, when he was 5 runs away from a double century, by saying that he wasn't concerned about his score. The ball was hittable, so he'd try. I hope he never ever changes his attitude. The Indian team management really has to be given a lot of credit for sticking with Sehwag, especially when he only made a few strokeful 30s and 40s as an opener.
Sachin Tendulkar's comments on being surprised at the timing of the declaration, with him just 6 runs short of a double century, were jarring to hear on such a good day for Indian cricket. Tendulkar needs to understand that the team goals are always more important than individual goals. My understanding of the situation is that the management (presumably Dravid and Wright and perhaps Ganguly) conveyed to Tendulkar and Yuvraj that the declaration would happen around an hour before stumps and if a wicket fell around that time, then it'd be immediately enforced to save as much time as possible and avoid a new batsman walking out and taking time to get set. On a wicket as flat as the one at Multan, the Indian bowling would need as many overs as possible to get Pakistan out twice, in succession, over three days. Past Indian teams have been guilty of being obsessed with individual achievements. For e.g. Ganguly poking around in the 90s during the 1999 World Cup game against South Africa and ultimately not getting his 100, a few occasions in the recent past where Tendulkar has scored quite slowly between 80 and 100 and Tendulkar's persistent public comments on him wanting to open rather than bat in the middle order, even though for nearly a year the Indian team was experimenting with Ganguly and Sehwag opening with Tendulkar in the middle order.
Contrast this with Dravid coming off after being hit when he was in his 90s in the Sydney test to save time when he could have taken some medication/treatment and gone on to make a century, Ganguly coming in the middle order in onedayers even though he prefers to open, Dravid keeping in onedayers even though he hates it, Ganguly coming in at the fag end of the day's play at Melbourne, ahead of Tendulkar who was having a lean patch. All of Tendulkar's double hundreds have come in drawn games. So it may not be a bad idea to see if the decision turns out to be a good one in the end! I was surprised though to see Balaji in the side ahead of Agarkar. Agarkar is definitely a superior bowler and fielder. So it could mean that his injury hasn't fully healed and India didnt want to risk him, Zaheer and Kumble returning from injury in the same game.
At 364/6 on day 3 with 112 runs required to avoid the follow on, the game can only go away from India if they bowl listlessly in tomorrow's first session. The aim must be to wrap up the tail before lunch and enforce the follow on. Pakistan's approach to batting tomorrow will also be interesting. Moin and Razzaq are stroke players and can score at a brisk pace. Pakistan's first aim would be to get past the followon mark without losing any wickets. Once they do that, the test is much more likely to be drawn.
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Business & Economy
How does America gain by not being too bellicose about outsourcing? Businessweek has some answers.
Cricket
23 years ago, Britain decided to participate in the Moscow Olympics, with the British Olympic Association voting in favour of participation, even as the Thatcher government was against it. The then chairman of the association defended the decision by saying they believed sport should be a bridge, and not a destroyer. Now, the ECB is all set to toe the government's line on the Zimbabwe issue.
Labels: outsourcing
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General
BlogFinder Nitin reports that Prof. Noam Chomsky has now started a blog.
Science & Technology
Spaced Out is an ambitious project to build the world's largest scale model of the solar system in Britain.
Here's something about domain names warfare and some of the interesting disputes which have arisen in this sphere.
Wired Magazine presents the 2004 Wired Rave Awards, featuring, among others, Peter Jackson, Steve Jobs & Jeff Bezos.
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Cricket
A minor achievement which got missed by most of the cricketing fraternity happened a couple of days ago during New Zealand's historic win against South Africa. Chris Martin scored a duck. So how is that an achievement? Well his sequence of scores makes Agarkar's tryst with ducks in Australia 4 years back seem positively Bradmanesque. Chris Martin's last 9 test innings have been ducks and has been dismissed in 7 of those. Go back a little further and in his 12 tests, he has made 12 runs: 7 of them came in his first test and 5 in his second. Punters who look at this blog would be well advised to put some money on Martin not scoring a run in the last test of the series.
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Cricket
In an ideal world where India-Pakistan relations are on the upswing, with the oneday series between India and Pakistan being tied at 2-2 with 1 match to go, the Pakistani crowds would applaud both teams in the final match for whatever efforts they put in. However, the reality is that if India ends up looking like winning the series, whether in a closely fought game or in a very convincing manner, it would be worth keenly watching sections of the the Pakistani crowd, waiting for them to start throwing things on the field and trying to disrupt proceedings or hurt the players or begin to utter provocative slogans directed at the Indian supporters in the crowd. The bonhomie so far in the crowd has been too good to be true and all it takes is for Pakistan to look like losing the series, the crunch game, for the feel-good factor to be shattered.
Politics
Former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao in a 2-part essay, talks about the post Cold War world and the role of democracy and economics in shaping the future.
The US is now contemplating providing India a 'major non-NATO ally' status as well, shortly after this was announced for Pakistan. Yesterday's White House press briefing had this interesting section:
Q Scott, can you please clarify two reports? One, last month when the President made an announcement in Mexico that U.S. is giving India a special status partnership -- Now last week, Secretary Powell was in Pakistan. He announced a special status with Pakistan, non-NATO status. What the difference between the two? Are they the same? Or is this opening the door for Pakistan to buy the U.S. weapons, or remain the same between the two countries, or triangle?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, does what remain the same with the two countries?
Q The triangle -- having same relationship with the U.S. will have with both countries, or is this special status with Pakistan, non-NATO alliance or allies?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think we made it clear that we're willing to explore the same possibility of similar cooperation with India. That's something we've made clear.
I was quite disappointed that the Indian government expressed its disappointment over Colin Powell not sharing information with the government on the plan to give Pakistan the non-NATO ally status. I think the government (and bureaucrats/diplomats) should be mature enough to realise that if we kept trying to have a zero-sum game vis-a-vis Indo-US and Pak-US relations, we'd never get anywhere. The US and Pakistan have been natural allies for the last 50 years while Indo-US ties have been looking up only in the last couple of years. The US was always going to give special status to Pakistan, which would now mean greater access to military technology, defence equipment and training. But that was something they've had, clandestinely or officially, all the while. So, in my opinion, the new knighthood given to Pakistan is immaterial. If India kept complaining whenever Pakistan was given sops, all nations of the world would look at their relationships with India in the context of their relationship with Pakistan and that'd be extremely detrimental to us. Imagine, if Britain decided that as part of economic co-operation with India, more British companies would be setting up call-centres but that India would only get 75% of those opportunities, the other 25% going to Pakistan. This'd result in a significant loss for Indian industry. It is high time we stopped complaining like a child whose sibling has been given a new toy.
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Movies
We saw the Tamil movie Autograph yesterday. The movie is a recollection of past incidents in the hero (played by the director Cheran himself) Senthil's life, about the women he met and fell in love with and the pain he experiences after seeing them a few years later. The incidents are woven together beautifully. Cheran flips nonchalantly from each phase of Senthil's life to the present. Senthil's relationships with his two loves and with his friend are handled with a lot of sensitivity and maturity, something you don't really expect from movie makers in this day and age. So many movies I've seen in the recent past tended to start off with characterizing the relationship between the hero and the heroine as being platonic in nature but in the end, due to force of circumstances (or of their own making), they fall in love and everyone lives happily ever after. Cheran has thankfully avoided the oft-beaten path.
The movie starts off with Senthil inviting everyone who has made a difference to his life, friends as well as his two lady loves. As he steps into the village where he grew up, he gets nostalgic about his childhood, his friends, the great times he had with them etc. The focus gradually shifts to Kamala, his first love. The situations involving the two are really nicely done and evoke quite a few guffaws at the goofups. Unfortunately, their love cannot proceed beyond class X because her education is being aborted. Senthil locates an old friend and with his help, he locates Kamala, who is now a mother of 3. Senthil is pained at her state but nevertheless invites Kamala and her husband to his wedding. He then leaves for Kerala where he did his college and fell in love with a Malayali girl, Lathika, crossing several linguistic barriers in the process. That affair doesn't last too long either and he gets beaten up by Lathika's father's henchmen and he last sees her in a boat, married to her relative, who was also their classmate. When he tries to locate Lathika with the help of a Tamil classmate, he tells him about the new woman in his life, Divya (played excellently by Sneha). Divya helps Senthil get his current job, in an advertising agency. She gives him the confidence to look to the future rather than brood over the past, conveying the theme of the movie that time is a great healer, but you must want to be healed. Sneha's character was a little predictable, in that while outwardly she is extremely self-confident and a go-getter, she flits from crisis to crisis, whether it is an attempted suicide for a failed love affair or her mother being critically ill.
Senthil then finds out that Lathika got widowed shortly after her marriage and soon ended up being alone with no-one to support her. Senthil begins to blame himself for her plight and decides to call off his marriage. Divya counsels him against doing this and convinces him that Lathika's pitiful existence wasn't his fault. Their love was sincere but external factors decided that they couldn't marry. The ending is quite predictable, Kamala and Lathika make it to the wedding and cast one longing glance at Senthil just as they exit stage right. The fight scenes were quite unnecessary, so producer Cheran could have saved some money by not using Super Subbarayan. The songs are quite ok and Bharadwaj has done a good job. The lyrics to most of the songs are also quite good.
The movie does make you think back to Azhagi a few times, perhaps because it touches on school love, village school life etc. But I suppose the subjects are different, so it isn't worth comparing. Overall it is a top effort from Cheran. A movie of this nature really does make you feel glad that meaningful cinema is possible, even today.
I did notice something anachronistic in the movie and if you feel I'm wrong, please let me know. Senthil's classmates in the village school kid their teacher/headmaster on the way he breaks wind (farts, for those who care to know) when they pose for a Class X group photograph by telling him "Sir, neenga matter-a potta dhaane sirippu varum". Well it was funny, but given that these were events in flashback and assuming Senthil, having done an undergraduation course and worked for a while, must be at least 21 years old, it means boys in village schools around 8 years ago were using words like "matter". I did find that hard to believe, because I think "matter" is much more likely to be used by high-school/college chaps in Madras nowadays and its difficult to think of high school boys in a village near Dindigal using that vocabulary.
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Politics
The defeat of Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar in the elections last week which took place in the aftermath of the Madrid bomb blasts was significant because the new government has made it clear that it would pull its troops out of Iraq unless the UN was given charge. PM elect Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has, ever since Spain decided to join the coalition of the willing, made it clear that his party, the Socialist party, was opposed to sending Spanish troops to help with the war against Saddam Hussein.
What made things worse for the ex-PM Jose Maria Aznar was that having been at a battle against Basque ETA terrorists, his government, rather rapidly, blamed that terrorist organization for the blasts in Madrid. The Spaniard next-door however wasnt convinced that it was an ETA attack. Basque ETA disclaimed any linkage to the blast. Analysts felt that ETA's involvement was unlikely because their typical modus operandi involved targetting politicians and giving warnings of bombs placed in public places. Additionally, if Basque ETA was behind the attack, it would only strengthen public support for Aznar's stand against them. The plot thickened when Al Qaeda claimed responsibility, as a response to the Spanish government's collaboration with the US and its allies.
Then Spaniards realized that it was possibly Islamic terrorism at work and decided that Al Qaeda was determined to hurt them because of the Aznar government's policy towards Iraq and the war against global terror. [This part of the war sponsored by the United States of America] They voted the Aznar government out of power. Alternately, they were angry that the government misled them by fixing the blame on Basque ETA and failing to see the terrorists.
It is a very significant development because it shows that electoral results can swing when events of this nature occur. Given that the terrorists have shown their ability to strike at will, anywhere, the chances that their actions could result in governments opposed to action against terrorism coming to power increase drastically, thereby strengthening the terrorist movements. Spain's rejection of Aznar's government could be taken as evidence of George Bush’s friendlessness as well as possibly trigger off dissent amongst the coalition forces.
Colin Powell's visit to India has had its fair share of questions on nuclear proliferation, Indo-Pak ties etc. He also answered questions on the various protectionist bills/laws being enacted at state and federal levels in the USA in reaction to jobs being outsourced to countries like India, China, Phillipines etc. Powell repeated his government's line, that India erecting high trade barriers was not helpful in Indo-US trade and that if India proceeded to lower the barriers, the US would also be able to address the issue of restrictions being placed on outsourcing. However, the central problem with an argument which attempts to link up outsourcing to open markets is that discussions on lowering existing barriers is typically done at the WTO. However, the stance by various governments/groups in the US against BPO is a case of a new barrier being erected. Keeping in mind that until recently, there were no such restrictions placed on BPO in the US, effectively, the demand is that India lower its duties and tariffs if it wants the US to not introduce fresh controls. Such a proposal also totally ignores the problems faced due to barriers & regulations placed on industrial and agricultural products placed by the US and other leading developed nations, in the form of agricultural product subsidies.
That famously maverick politician, Subramanian Swamy offers his views on why Nehru's secularism model failed.
Link of the day
Google has launched a new service called Google Local which can be used to locate services etc. in the neighbourhood as well as providing maps to help people get to where they want to.
The plight of customer care:
Labels: al-qaeda, google, outsourcing
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Technology & Business
As the USA's dominance in technology begins to wane, Business Week analyzes how the US could fight back.
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Science
There's been talk of a discovery of a new planet in the solar system, beyond Pluto, tentatively named Sedna. This is how it fares in the size wars and in terms of distance from the sun.
It's official now. Windows and crashes in the United Kingdom. More troubles from the EU for Microsoft and Bill Gates.
Link of the day
Dr. Venkataswamy at a Madurai eye hospital, one of India's most famous cataract surgeons talks about his vision. [pun intended!]
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Politics & Technology
Thomas Friedman makes a bizarre analogy in his NY Times column.
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Politics
Sonia Gandhi talks to The Hindu on her past, present and future.
Garry Kasparov, the world's best chess player who is not Indian, calls for the western world to condemn Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Cricket
Even as TEN Sports cries foul over Doordarshan's antics during yesterday's India v Pakistan game where DD didnt show TEN's logo and inserted their own advertisements, which TEN Sports claims went against the Court judgement a couple of days ago, I needn't point out where you first read about the possibility of Doordarshan being nasty, it was right here!
As for the game per se, it was no doubt a real thriller. But I hate it when journalists say that cricket won. Sorry, India did. Yes, the batsmen won. Yes the crowd won. Yes some of the fielding on show was really good (Kaif's catch in particular!) but the bowlers lost. It is totally cruel on that tribe if nearly 700 runs are scored and a team making 350 is nearly defeated. I long for the days of the 1980s-early 1990s when teams were safe if they made around 250 batting first.
Ramachandra Guha writes a nice piece on unpatriotic acts like passing on tips to opposition bowlers and batsmen.
Technology
Forbes Magazine profiles eBay's technology.
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Cricket
It happened today. Shane Warne's resurrection, the most famous one since that of Jesus Christ nearly 2000 years ago, was well and truly complete today when he took his 500th Test wicket to help Australia beat Sri Lanka at Galle very convincingly. Muralitharan was pipped to the post and this was always on the cards especially after Australia negotiated him excellently in their second innings. Warne is now 19 wickets shy of overtaking Walsh and it'd be an amazing feat if he did manage to get past Walsh in this series, although you can never really write off Murali making a stirring comeback to reach 520 quicker than Warne.
As the plaudits start rolling in about how Warne is the greatest of them all etc. etc., it must not be forgotten that he hasn't really been the angel that he's made out to be. If, as Cricket Australia chairman Bob Merriman says, "Test cricket has been played for 127 years and in that time only one other person has taken 500 wickets", it is equally true that in the 127 years of Test cricket, only one man has been banned for taking a diuretic and only one other Australian has been fined for accepting money from a bookmaker. Warne's faults must not be swept under the carpet. Yes, it is an awesome sight watching him bowl and snare the batsmen. Yet, like I mentioned just over a year ago, Warne's actions cannot and must not be condoned. Lets put it this way, when Murali gets to 500 wickets, Warne will be in a minority of one in the list of most admired & gentlemen cricketers with 500 Test wickets.
Nitin writes in 'The Acorn' that the Indian cricketers are being made to play in a country whose most recent missile test can hit anywhere from Eden Gardens, to Wankhede to Chepauk to Chinnaswamy stadium.
Link of the day
So how did the smiley come about? CNet talks to one of the inventors.
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Cricket
More mindless interference by the government into the issue of Prasar Bharati being able to telecast live the India-Pakistan cricket series. The government is apparently now contemplating bringing into force an ordinance which makes it mandatory for any channel in India to share feed of events of national interest with Prasar Bharati. The government would bring out a list of such events. The government's new stand is being guided by the fact that Pakistan's laws had such a clause.
I think the government's stand that an India-Pakistan cricket series is an event of national interest and importance is totally misguided. I'd have agreed if any TV channel had the rights to say, the Republic Day parade and wasn't allowing Doordarshan to telecast it too. Now that is a national event. Cricket is not, even if it is allegedly the national religion. If Prasar Bharati managed to get the rights through hook or by crook, would it agree to not insert any advertisements during the day's play, given that the event is one of national interest and importance? I don't think there are advertisement breaks during the Republic Day Parade or the Independence Day function, is there? So why a different yardstick. Basically it boils down to the fact, as I mentioned yesterday, that Prasar Bharati missed the bus while Ten Sports didnt. Prasar Bharati has only now realized the enormous marketing potential and loss of advertisement revenue and is thus clinging onto the government for succour.
Business & Economics
Is there a case for an integrated ASEAN economic zone, given the extremely fragmented nature of the ASEAN economies, drop in foreign direct investment and exports? The McKinsey Quarterly report studies the countries of ASEAN and gives a few recommendations.
Politics
Well it maybe a bit of hyperbole, but if Pakistan's nuclear proliferation isnt controlled, the US could be directly attacked using a very miniscule nuclear bomb and still lose over 1/2 million people and $1 trillion in economic damages.
Labels: proliferation, tv rights
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Cricket
Viewers in most parts of India have been deprived of the sports channel Ten Sports for around a couple of weeks now. Ten Sports claims that the cable operators have been massively under-declaring their revenues and subscriber base. The TV channel wants the cable operators to provide an advance fee for the next 6 months and show a 500% increase in subscriber numbers. This issue of subscriber numbers being under-declared by the cable operators has been around ever since the cable TV revolution started in India in the early 1990s. TV channels accuse the service operators of cheating them by showing a miniscule number of subscribers, while the cable operators say that the TV channels' claims of the viewership is grossly over-rated. Who gets caught in the shooting? The viewer, like you and me, who has paid up his monthly subscription to the cable operator and yet can't see all the channels he pays for.
The issue gets complicated when the cable operator tells you that Ten Sports is raising its charges, when it actually isn't. The cable operator tries to get you to pay up an extra 10 bucks or so and he passes that money on (after ensuring his profit margin) to the TV channel and claims to show an increase in revenue and subscriber base. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, in a judgement in January, announced that cable rates paid by the subscribers would be fixed as the rate on 26 Dec 2003. Since the amount you pay to the cable operator trickles all the way upto the TV channel, this ruling effectively means that the channel cannot increase its rates and neither can the cable operator indicate that there is a price hike.
My gut feeling is that everyone (the operators, the MSOs and the TV channels) will ask for their pound of flesh and will come to a satisfactory understanding just before the series starts (or shortly after). Whose flesh will it be? The viewers', obviously!
In a related issue, Prasar Bharati has been trying to coax Ten Sports into giving it the rights for terrestrial telecast of the India-Pakistan series in India. Obviously Ten Sports has rejected the issue outright, claiming that it was an entirely commercial issue, wherein Prasar Bharati did not even participate in the bidding process when the rights for cricket telecasts in Pakistan were being sold. The central government has also tried to have a say in the issue by accusing Ten Sports that it wasn't interested in India-Pakistan relations because it refused to negotiate over the telecast rights.
To me, this is totally ridiculous. Why bring in Indo-Pak relations into the issue? Prasar Bharati didn't bother to bid for the rights. Hence they don't get to telecast live the games in India. As simple as that. One of the petitions against Ten Sports even brings in the fundamental right to entertainment. Last I checked, the Indian Constitution provided for nothing of that sort.
Politics
I forgot to mention it here, but the face of the Mandal Commission report demonstrations, Rajeev Goswami, died in Delhi on February 24th. Rajeev Goswami's attempt at self-immolation sometime in August (?) 1989, was in protest against the VP Singh government’s decision to revive the recommendations of the Mandal Commission, which had suggested 27 per cent quota for backward classes. Chandan Mitra, the editor of 'The Pioneer' on why India forgot a hero.
Link of the day
100 most often mispronounced words and phrases in English.
Labels: tv rights
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General
I hate John Dunlop. I hate him for getting the bright idea of the pneumatic tyre sometime in the late 1880s. Dunlop was a veterinarian whose son was prescribed cycling as a cure for a heavy cold. In those days, wheels were treaded with metal and so the ride wasn't comfortable. The story also goes that his son destroyed his garden by cycling in it. So Dunlop tried to smoothen the ride by making a tube using glued strips of rubber, wrapped the tube around the wheel and wrapped the tube in linen tape to make a tread. Then he inflated the tube with compressed air using a pump for filling footballs. Lo behold, the first pneumatic tyre, making rides smoother for millions of vehicles!!
However Dunlop's bright idea meant that if you had a punctured tube/tyre, your ride was stalled because you couldn't take the vehicle anywhere without fixing the puncture. Thats exactly what happened to us yesterday when we went to watch Ab tak chappan at a nearby movie complex. Read on for a brief review.
Movies
Ab Tak Chappan features Nana Patekar as Sadhu Agashe, the encounter specialist and his life. The movie is produced by Ram Gopal Varma and is directed by yet-another-new-director-introduced-by-RGV. Of late, most of Ram Gopal Varma's productions have tended to border on the dark side, such as Bhoot, Jungle, Darna Mana Hai. In Ab tak Chappan, he goes back to his favourite gang/underworld/cop theme. Nana Patekar's bosses have full faith in him, but one of his subordinates (Imtiaz, played by the chap who played the dissident Lakha in Lagaan - isn't he getting stereotyped in these roles?) thinks he's a publicity monger. The new police commissioner isn't too impressed with Sadhu Agashe's encounters and tries to bring him down to earth. Sadhu is in regular touch with a most wanted underworld don called Zameer (who seems to be living in Malaysia) and Zameer has an enmity with the 'company' of Feroze and Rajashekar. Zameer constantly tries to bring Nana over to his side, but keeps failing. Feroze is captured by the cops but escapes from jail. Revathi (who plays Nana's wife) is murdered at a party. Zameer tells Nana that he suspects Feroze has killed her. Nana's life takes a turn for the worse when he is held responsible for a corporator's death (who he'd met the day before he resigned) and he has to flee Bombay. Imtiaz now heads the team Nana was in charge of and they manage to snare Nana. Nana's juniors, who support him and are against Imtiaz, kill Imtiaz and free Nana. Nana Patekar, with Zameer's help, flees India and lands up in Zameer's place.
Does Sadhu Agashe manage to find out who his wife's killer was? Will he team up with an underworld don to finish off another? Is there a twist in the tale? Well, don't bother to go and see this movie. There is a twist, for sure. But its not worth 3 hours of your time and nearly 100 Rs of tickets/eatables etc. It is not a patch on the most recent cop movie I saw,
Kaaka Kaaka by Gautham, starring Surya & Jyothika.
We certainly expected more violence than was eventually shown, which is odd for a gangster-police movie. Ab tak chappan, is what the producer RGV, will be saying the day after he says ab tak pachpan, which is what he'll say the day after he says ab tak chauvvan ... it'd be a miracle if this movie ran for 56 days. RGV should be counting down from Ab tak bees.
Cricket
An interview with the real McCoy, the real master blaster, Viv Richards on his birthday.
Link of the day
Spam is nothing new, it goes as far back as March 1994. An even earlier message is found through the Internet Archive. Find out what the Monty Python group's contribution to this is.
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Politics
In an absolutely retrograde move, the Jammu & Kashmir assembly passed a bill which meant that women of J & K who married outside the state would lose their Permanent Resident status. This reversed an earlier J & K High Court judgement. There had been an executive order, passed in 1927, which said the same thing but the granddaughter of the former Chief Minister GM Bakshi had successfully contested the order after she lost her PR status after marrying the son of a former Punjab Governor. I suppose India does end up losing a lot of face, especially when internationally the consensus is on democratizing and modernizing a lot of Muslim countries.
While replying to a question on whether there would be seat sharing between the BJP, the Shiv Sena and the Swatantra Bharat Party, Pramod Mahajan said that 'what dowry has to be given, leave it to me to decide'. In this day and age when there should be a wholehearted attempt from all sections of society to get rid of the practice of dowry, Mr. Mahajan's remark comes across as crass, insensitive and Philstine. He has to offer an apology.
Ajit Duara offers a tongue in cheek comment on the recent mass acquisitions of filmstars, tv artistes and cricketers by various parties.
Labels: jammu and kashmir
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Link of the day
Can you tell a coder from a killer?
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Politics
The Delhi High court, admitting a petition against the 'India Shining' campaign, has asked the Union government to file accounts and provide financial details of the advertisement campaign.
Quite disturbed to see a recent news report that the government has decided to grant citizenship to Pakistani Hindus who've been living in India for more than 5 years. The reason these people are in India is because they fear religious persecution in Pakistan. Fair enough. But that means they have sought asylum. Should these people be treated on par with existing citizens? Should these people have voting rights just because they have lived in India for 5 years? The government's policy on citizenship and the rights of one seem to be extremely muddled. Sonia Gandhi, who has been a citizen for nearly 15 years now should not seek the office of Prime Minister, because she is of Italian origin. But an asylum seeker from Pakistan can, in theory, become Prime Minister.
A tale of two ex-generals, details of Colin Powell's tete-a-tetes with Pervez Musharraf.
Link of the day
An online game which can also be used to associate textual labels with images, which would go a long way in making image searches much easier.
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Science & Technology
The Mars rover Opportunity has found evidence that Mars once was wet enough for life to exist there. However there has been no discovery of any traces of living organisms. Various rock samples obtained from the planet indicate that water did flowed through those rocks, thereby changing their texture and chemistry.
Cricket
Rohit Brijnath, in a special column for the BBC Online, on why it is imperative that the Indian team build on its successful tour of Australia and go on to win in Pakistan.
Link of the day
A nice graphical way of comparing search results from Google and Yahoo!
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Movies
We watched the Aparna Sen movie 'Mr. & Mrs. Iyer' yesterday on the idiot box. It was quite a nice movie, with a very good storyline, some brilliant performances from the cast, great camera work and obviously a well made one. However there were quite a few occasions when I had to wonder if there was a sudden low voltage/fluctuation because the screen went so dark, we had to really peer to see the actors. Some scenes were shot with almost no light, so that was kind of unnerving. Even though Mani Ratnam's movie "Bombay" handled a similar subject, the two movies are quite in contrast. Bombay was large scale and dealt with the riots of a city and how a family, and their dependents are caught in the madness. Mr. & Mrs. Iyer is smaller in scale and it deals with the lives of two people and how a single sentence by Meenakshi changes things, including her attitude towards Raja (or Jahangir). Mani Ratnam wasn't averse to gory scenes of violence and hatred. Aparna Sen focusses instead on the protagonists and this means the audience has to form its own imagery of the violence and emotions flying around, in the way we don't actually see the the old Muslim couple being killed. Instead the next day Raja finds the old man's false teeth and broken spectacles.
I think of late, very few filmmakers in India, care to make movies about things which happen around us or make statements, political or social, about various issues bothering Indians. We saw quite a few movies in the 1980s which were termed as "art" movies and were typically either watched by a crowd of 50-60 people in a 500 seater theatre or on Doordarshan at home. But the 1980s also saw sensitive, well-made mainstream movies like Masoom, Saagar as well as a plethora of social-comedies from Sai Paranjpe and Kundan Shah. Add in the mid-to-late 1970s comedies from Basu Chatterji and Hrishikesh Mukherjee and it's not difficult to see that it is possible to make good cinema and make a statement and make a reasonable amount of money as well! While cinema is meant to entertain, movie makers should be alive to a responsibility to put forth their views on various happenings as well, without overdramatizing things for the sake of cinema. Yes, profits would be difficult to make, but how many movies do make profits or run for even 75 days nowadays? Might as well make a sensitive, courageous movie about a topic close to heart, get plaudits and get the same returns as you would if you made a spectacular, big budget re-re-re-re-re-remake.
Even as Peter Jackson and his crew lorded over the rings and the Oscar awards, compere Billy Crystal had the audience in splits with his satire and comedy. I wonder if we're really as much of a democracy as we claim. I can't visualize an awards ceremony in India where the host launches a diatribe (or says it satirically) on say the government's policy against Pakistan or the Gujarat riots or the IIM fee cut by the HRD minister. I'm sure the pre-censoring would ensure that. The reason given would typically be that saying such things presented India in a bad light. Unfortunately this means the government is deluded into thinking that statements about the government translate into statements against India. Not quite, the government represents India, it is NOT India.
Cricket
Noted writer (sociology & cricket, amongst others) Ramachandra Guha dabbles in mathematics by using transitivity to make a case for Rahul Dravid being amongst India's finest batsmen ever.
Labels: movies, oscars, review
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