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Badri's Tamil thoughts
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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.
Politics
One of the offshoots of Dr AQ Khan's (and the ISI, the military and Pakistani government's) nuclear proliferation is that it is more than likely that in future, the US could display a more even handed treatment of Pakistan and India in nuclear policy related matters.
Labels: proliferation
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Politics
Mark Tully, on the feel-good factor being espoused by the NDA.
Business & Economy
Is the US making a big mistake by bringing about laws to prevent off-shoring? Seems so, when you consider that at a typical BPO unit, computers, software, telecommunication devices, air-conditioning and soft-drinks are all made by US companies and exports from US companies to India have grown by nearly 70% over the last 12 years.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet head the usual suspects list (along with a few other surprises) in the Forbes richest billionaires list.
A product or company name is a serious marketing issue, and names must work like marketing weapons, says Naseem Javed.
Link of the day
Find out if the internet thinks you're male or female.
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Technology
So how many of the top 10 web properties of 1996 still can be found today? Comscore's media matrix goes back in time to find out.
Bill Gates worries about the fact that fewer young people are choosing to study computer science and is very keen to meet students currently in college to encourage them to take up computer science.
Politics
With what could potentially be an extremely intrusive campaign, the BJP's e-lection machinery spearheaded by Pramod Mahajan threatens to misuse all available means of technology to reach out to potential voters, including SMS, email, phone calls etc.
Cricket
Former Pakistani captain/wicket-keeper and current match-fixing expose specialist Rashid Latif feels that Pakistan definitely have the edge over India based on their recent record in both tests and one-dayers.
To see if he was far away from the truth, I compared the two teams over 20 Tests and 40 ODIs. Pakistan has a 22-17 win-loss record while India's is 21-17. Not much to choose from there. But when you consider that of those 40, Pakistan played Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and New Zealand (among the top ODI sides) a total of 24 times, including playing a Kiwi 2nd XI at home a few months ago, while India played those teams 27 times. I must add that Australia and India have played each other rather regularly of late (12 games) while Pakistan don't quite fancy playing Australia (once). Oh, and did Rashid know that Pakistan lost to all and sundry (including England) at the World Cup and failed to qualify for the 2nd round while India were the finalists and lost only to Australia?
It seems like he may have a case in tests where Pakistan has a 12-6 record from 20 games while India's is 5-6. But of those 12 tests Pakistan won, 7 were against the combined might of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Compare that to India playing Australia, England, New Zealand and West Indies and we obviously know who's played the tougher opposition!
Perhaps Rashid should stick to his matchfixing expose book after all!
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Business & Economy
Vinod Khosla, co-founder and first CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc, feels that India must use the WTO to prevent protectionism and action against outsourcing by the US in an election year.
The Complete Guide to Googlemania from Wired Magazine.
In the near future, we could find lesser and lesser European firms offshoring to India and instead looking at the likes of Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic, mainly because distance and timezones don't matter, cultural, linguistic, and ethnic ties matter a lot in what is called "near-shoring".
The lives of several Keralites isn't plain vanilla any more!
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Cricket
Viv Richards, the current West Indies chairman of selectors sizes up his team's performances of late and looks ahead to England's tour.
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General
Over the weekend, I was following some debate on TV where one of the participants, opposing the NDA government's "India Shining" campaign said that no one needed to teach Indians patriotism. Patriotism doesn't happen by seeing advertisements. How true, I wondered and I cast my mind back to an article in The Hindu a few months ago, possibly on the eve of Independence Day. The article talked about patriotism among the youth and given that I count myself in that category, I was appalled to read that quite a few of those didn't care about being patriotic or said they were patriotic only during cricket matches. I don't have too much time for those who say they're not patriotic, but narrowing down a definition of patriotism to being a jingoistic supporter of Team India during cricket matches is ridiculous. I'm fairly sure that those chaps would complete the slogan "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan" by saying "Jai Maggi!".
So what is patriotism? Is it a feeling when you're unabashedly proud of your country and cannot tolerate someone pointing out anything negative about it, as seems to be the mentality of the current government who keep claiming that "India is shining", regardless of the fact that a whopping %age of the people don't agree. When someone raises issues like dowry deaths, farmer deaths, unemployment etc., the government brushes off these numbers saying that you should talk about the mood rather than the details, and sometimes even brands these non-believers as being unpatriotic and working against India.
According to me, patriotism is when you're proud of whats good abt your country, when you feel bad at what is wrong, but you're willing to do your bit to remove what's bad.
A Punjabi taxi driver is planning to drive in reverse to Pakistan as a peace initiative. Apparently he's been driving his taxi in reverse through the streets of Bhatinda for the last couple of years! I hope he doesn't suffer any reverses during his trip to Pakistan.
Cricket
The heavyweight boxing championship in cricket has been underway for a week or so now. It started off with former Sri Lanka captain, Arjuna Ranatunga landing the first punch by dismissing the current Australian side as not being too good without the Waughs and McGrath and derided the spinners comparing them to Murali and gang.
Never one to hold back, Shane Warne then commented sarcastically about Arjuna's waistline saying that he probably weighed around 150 kg and wondered if he'd swallowed a sheep or a goat.
Ranatunga continued the jibes with a killer punch saying that it was better to swallow a sheep or a goat than swallow what Warne had been swallowing, a reference to the diuretic which Warne swallowed, leading him to be banned from cricket for a year.
These two go back a long way. In the 1996 World Cup, Ranatunga dismissed Warne as being overrated, and proceeded to dismantle him in the World Cup final. Before the 1999 World Cup, Warne said that cricket (and Sri Lankan cricket) would be better off without Ranatunga, in the context of Ranatunga's finger-wagging histrionics earlier that year in Australia after Muralitharan had been called for chucking by umpire Ross Emerson. Warne was hauled up by the ICC for his comments. Ranatunga responded saying that Warne's comments spoke about him and Australia's culture and added that Sri Lanka had 2500 years of culture and said that everyone knew where Australians came from, pointing out the fact that convicted criminals from Britain were sent to Australia as the first few inhabitants.
The war of words isn't over. Watch this space folks!
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Politics & Religion
The International Religious Freedom Report for 2003 accuses the Indian government of discrimination against or persecution of minority or nonapproved religions. It talks about anti-conversion laws and the lack of convictions related to the Gujarat riots. There is a mention of the fact that the NDA is made up of the BJP, which has links to Hindu extremist groups as well as the ineffective investigation and prosecution of communal violence related incidents. Surprisingly I haven't seen any official government reaction to this report.
Good sense has prevailed and the UP government has withdrawn its order to close teaching in government educational institutions by noon on Fridays.
Link of the day
Soople is a one-stop interface that softens all the fantastic advanced functions Google offers.
The Onion interviews Arthur C Clarke on a wide variety of topics, ranging from religion to life on Mars etc.
Stat of the day: There was a mild decrease in the serious trouser business of "zip-related mishaps" amongst British men. These eye-watering injuries fell to 700 in 2002 from 800 in 1998.
The longest domain name not associated with any prank?
Science & Technology
A few X-ray observatories have collected direct evidence for the catastrophic destruction of a star that wandered too close to a supermassive black hole.
Labels: gujarat violence 2002
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Business & Economy
David Kirkpatrick has got a lot of stick from the American Joe Public on his earlier column on the offshoring of jobs. Given the extreme nature of some of the feedback he received, perhaps it is time for the people affected by offshoring to vent their spleen at the American companies who don't seem to re-invest the savings from offshoring into the US economy rather than at at Indians, Chinese and Filipinos.
Cricket
After Hansie Cronje, Bob Woolmer and Allan Donald had an aborted attempt at wiring themselves up at the 1999 World Cup, the ICC ruled that communications hardware could not be worn/brought by the players on the field of play. Kiwi coach John Bracewell has circumvented that ruling by instead wiring up the trainer/physio who then relays information on to fielders on the boundary. It does raise issues on whether using this technology reflects poorly on the captain's competence. But captains do take in inputs from their teammates as well.
I think the Luddites at the ICC will disallow this type of communication as well. I'm all for even using devices like wireless walkie-talkies, cellphones etc. on the field of play. Perhaps there'd need to be some checks in place to prevent anyone other than the coach or members of the squad from being able to communicate with the players. Then again, any amount of technology is of no use when the batsman or bowler doesn't have the ability/discipline to stick to the team plan.
Politics & Humour
Jaspal Bhatti, the satirist, who has been rather anonymous of late, has just launched the 'feel good' party saying that the foreign origin wasn't an issue at all, as long as there was foreign currency.
In what is an obvious attempt at garnering Muslim votes for the election, all government schools and colleges affiliated to the UP Board have been asked to to conduct the teaching work till 12.00 noon every Friday. The opposition BJP, instead of trying to reverse the decision, made its own demand for a similar relaxation on Tuesdays to help Hindus offer prayers at temples. How lower can these people get?
Link of the day
An engineering student from Oxford manages to deliver a series of lectures in Beijing on global economics even though the audience comprised of people working towards a PhD in business studies!
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Cricket
I'm fairly sure this quote deserves a spot in the humorous cricket quotes I put up last week. But I genuinely believe there is more talent coming through in England than in Australia. - England offspinner Gareth Batty.
Current India Under-19 side coach Robin Singh, who recently announced his retirement talks to Sportstar on his cricket.
Business
The Ambani brothers feature on the cover of Time Asia's story on how Asia's business families are being forced to change their cloistered, Confucian ways. The magazine also has a story on whether India is really shining or not.
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Opinion
I managed to get my point of view across in a letter to the editor published in 'The Hindu'. Mine is the third letter in the page.
Some of my earlier contributions which have been published were on the killing of Veerappan's hostage, the former Karnataka minister Nagappa, a HRD ministry move to incorporate multiple views of history into school textbooks and Vaiko's arrest under POTA.
Cricket
None of the Indian cricketers selected to tour Pakistan will be casting their votes in favour of the NDA parties as a protest against the decision to go ahead with the tour to Pakistan.
Labels: letters to the editor
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Politics
The Hindu had a wonderful cartoon yesterday on dynastic politics.
Cricket
Nitin argues that the government's decision to go ahead with the tour to Pakistan shows that the NDA government is quite willing to risk the lives of national icons as a concession on the negotiating table. Well said. A tour to Pakistan is never an indicator of improving situations. By going to Pakistan, the cricketers are going to be overworked bigtime.
Shortly after they return in April/May, there is a tour to Bangladesh and that'd obviously include a few one-day internationals. I think the BCCI has also committed itself to the Asia Cup. After the Asia Cup, the cricketers would get a month or so off before they leave to Europe to first participate in a tri-nation (a real kind, not the farce we saw in Australia!) series against Australia and Pakistan. They then troop off to England (or wherever the trophy is moved, if the ICC votes against England) for the Champions Trophy in Aug/Sep. Then they stick around there to play a 3 ODI series against England. On returning, they're then faced with the toughest home season in a long while as Australia first, and then South Africa, visit India. So in the span of 9 months, the cricketers would have had a break for around a month or so, collected a few million valuable airline miles and become totally drained by the year end. Well done, BCCI. You truly do care for the players.
Technology
George Colony, Chairman & CEO of Forrester Research evaluates what would happen to Google in the near future in the context of its impending IPO.
Labels: google
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Technology
Microsoft, that paragon of computer security and safety, is currently investigating how parts of source code for the Windows 2000 and NT Operating Systems were posted on the Internet. Perhaps they have really accepted the Open Source model and this is the first step towards joining the movement.
Cricket
Shane Warne feels elated that he was hit for six in the last over of his comeback game, a shot which meant that his side lost. Warne ended up with match figures of 35.5-8-152-5, a strike-rate of 43 and an economy rate of 4.25 runs/over.
I found these funny quotes by a few cricketers of the 70s-80s.
- He wants to middle one or two balls in the centre of the bat - Bill Lawry
- Wes Hall was delighted that his new son is a boy - Tony Cozier
- The scoreboard keeps ticking over at a great rate of knots - Rodney Marsh
- A tiger never changes its spots - Len Pascoe (This is definitely a classic)
- Viv Richards is the drawcard, he’s the ace up the sleeve, and it’ll be like a bomb going off if he fires on the night - Martin Kent
- But England’s lead was only 36 and just two rabbits remaining in the hutch as a crutch for Russell - Peter Bills
- I have probably made more friends overseas from pigeons than from cricket - Bill Lawry
- I never like to see anyone hurt playing this game, Rodney, but if it has to happen, then playing the reverse sweep seems as good a way as any - Richie Benaud
Politics
VS Arunachalam writes in 'The Hindu' that it is not going to be an easy job for Pervez Musharraf to convince Pakistanis of the urgent need to transform Pakistan into a peaceful, prosperous democtratic Islamic state like Malaysia. Amit Baruah almost seems to tell Pervez Musharraf You've come a long way, baby!
Iran confessed that it possesses a design for an advanced high-speed centrifuge to enrich uranium than it previously revealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency. George Bush immediately went on the offensive and said the US was considering reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for not disclosing its nuclear program in full. Perhaps Bush should also consider reporting Pakistan for its indiscretions, given that new centrifuge which Iran talks about is called a "Pak-2" because it represents Pakistan's second-generation design.
Link of the day
Upload an audio file and hear it played backwards!
Labels: iran
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Politics
C Raja Mohan writes in 'The Hindu' on what India's strategy should be towards the implications of Pakistan's role in the global spread of nuclear weapons.
An aide close to Pervez Musharraf claims that Dr. AQ Khan had a complete blank cheque and that he could do anything, go anywhere, buy anything at any price.
Labels: aq khan, proliferation
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Politics
Excerpts from an interview with Pervez Musharraf where he accepted that he'd suspected Dr. Khan's nuclear proliferation but also added that the US hadn't supplied him with convincing proof.
Cmon Pervez, get off the high horse. Should the US provide you with proof that your nuclear weapons programme chief was smuggling technology with the connivance of the top brass in the military and political establishments? If Pakistan is a responsible nuclear state, as you (and other PMs in the past) have stated often, why didn't you have enough checks in place? Now any attempt by other countries to question the entire proliferation issue or the pardon given to Dr. Khan is brushed off as being an internal matter of Pakistan. Perhaps the US providing proof is also an internal issue? Musharraf brazenly claims that they had no idea this was going on since the 1980s. India has been shouting itself hoarse for the last 15 years about Pakistan's clandestine nuclear weapons programme and the proliferation to other rogue countries in exchange for missile technology. Yet, when the cat is out of the bag, does it make sense for the Indian government to strangely not go at full throttle, just because there is a thaw in Indo-Pak relations currently? Would staying silent help? Would the full details of Pakistan's nuclear programme be made public for the world to see? No. Then why not put pressure on Pakistan?
Musharraf proudly claims "We nipped the proliferation in the bud, we stopped the proliferation," he said of Dr. Khan's removal. "That is the important part.". No it isn't dear Pervez. The horse had bolted and the barn door was shut much later. Its like an Australian captain saying that when his bowlers and fielders sledged opposition batsmen, there was no need for the ICC to step in because they would handle it internally by imposing a fine that the sledger would buy beer for the team.
Cut to the US State Department daily briefing where spokesman Richard Boucher puts a few spokes in the wheel of the Pakistani government's claims (see above) that they weren't informed early enough about possible proliferation by Dr. Khan and his cohorts.
Pakistan's fingerprints continue to be found all over the international terrorist network. The Washington Times reports that Islamic radicals are being trained at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir as part of a conspiracy to send hundreds of operatives to "sleeper cells" in the USA.
With Democrat Presidential hopeful John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, asking US President Bush to come clear on his military record, the White House had a press briefing resulting in the usual round-about answers.
Education
With Murli Manohar Joshi poking his nose into the IIMs by directing them to reduce their annual fees from Rs. 1.5 lakhs to Rs. 30,000, there is a raging debate on whether management education should be subsidized or not. The problem is that the government wants a subsidized high quality education at the engineering and management level while the real focus should be on ensuring quality primary education for all. It is a simple case of playing to the gallery and the votebank when it is election time. Dr. UR Rao, whose report was used as a justification for the decision to cut the IIM's fees is aghast at the whole direction his report has taken. Rasheeda Bhagat feels that the educational institutions must make it clear that they don't require grants from the government to escape from its clutches.
Oh, and whose money is being used to subsidize IIM education? Yours and mine (well, if you pay taxes in India, that is!).
Cricket
Mike Marqusee, who wrote a book War minus the shooting: Journey through South Asia during cricket's World Cup, comments on the India-Pakistan Test series which could still not happen!
Link of the day
What if a telephone system could figure out that you were getting angrier waiting for the customer care operator to attend to you and instead of providing an automated menu or soothing music, urgently transfer you to the operator? That is exactly what Prof. Shrikanth Narayanan and his team in the Speech Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory at the University of Southern California have been working on. As is normal with a research project, it has a zany title: Rapid Development of Mission-Oriented Communication Skills.
Media & Technology
Just as we go to press, news comes in that Comcast Communications has proposed a merger with The Walt Disney Company and valued Disney at $66 billion. Slides of the proposal presented to the Comcast board on Feb 1, 2004.
Labels: aq khan, proliferation
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Politics
British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Jack Straw talks to N Ram about going to war in Iraq and other aspects of a the India-UK bilateral relationship.
The Hindu's editorial on the pardon granted to Dr. AQ Khan.
George Bush defends his actions on NBC's 'Meet the press' and the New York Times has an editorial while The Washington Post has a column.
Cricket
Australian wicket-keeper batsman (or batsman wicket-keeper?) Adam Gilchrist sums up the VB Series and mentions that there maybe a need to restructure the annual one-day triangular series.
The BCCI hasn't quite received a shot in the arm from the Indian team for the planned tour to Pakistan. Sourav Ganguly has expressed the team's concerns over the security situation, hastening to add that playing Pakistan wasn't the issue. Pervez Musharraf has pledged full support for administrative and security measures to ensure the tour is a success. Unconfirmed reports however suggest that the players are under tremendous pressure from their families not to go to Pakistan.
Labels: aq khan, proliferation, uk
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Cricket
In two contrasting events on the same day, in the same part of the world, two different facets of Indian sport were on display. Irfan Pathan, the new kid on the block was reprimanded by the ICC Match Referee Clive Lloyd for making an exuberant gesture, clapping and beaming Damien Martyn off when he dismissed him in the second final at Sydney. Damien Martyn, like a spoilt child, complained to the umpires even though there were no words exchanged. Perhaps Pathan was applauding Martyn's knock and his return to form? In the same game, Sourav Ganguly was sledged and abused by Brad Williams, yet he did not report it to the umpires, preferring to inform Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain. Ganguly later claimed that he did not want it blown out of proportion.
In contrast, in New Zealand, Indian tennis hero and captain Leander Paes admitted to having sledged his opponent Simon Rea in the crucial deciding Davis Cup reverse singles match of the Asia-Oceania zone I tie. Paes was provoked by the Kiwi captain after he had lost the first set.
The two contrasting incidents also came in two contrasting results. India were whipped left, right and centre by Australia in the 2nd final, while Leander Paes won all 3 of his matches to lead India to a victory. This, by a man who six months ago was staring down an aborted career.
Shane Warne makes his comeback to cricket in a game for Victoria's 2nd XI. Tim Lane feels let down by the convenient manipulation of laws by Cricket Australia officials.
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Politics
Even as Shekhar Gupta wonders Musharraf ko gussa kyon aata hai, Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor of Nuclear Physics at Quaid-e-Azam University writes about the need for Pakistan to put its nuclear house in order.
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Cricket
The first final of the tri (or bi?) series is over. India overwhelmed by Australia with 7 wickets and nearly 10 overs to spare. Pity there're no bonus points in finals, we could have got one! An abysmal batting display (the 3rd in 3 consecutive games now!) meant that India were never quite in the hunt after losing 4 wickets within the first 15 and 6 within the first 25 overs! Perhaps, as the experts have opined, this has been a tour far too long. The BCCI deserves a rap for accepting a schedule of this nature. 12 one-day games when the third team was clearly never going to make the finals is ridiculous. Perhaps in these tournaments (unless it is a World Cup or the ICC Champions Trophy), once it has been determined who progresses to the next round, there should be no more matches. That'll prevent a whole bunch of meaningless "contents".
I had a look at the performances by the Indian batsmen in losing games against Australia, starting from the 2003 World Cup, including today's no-show.
The opening partnerships were: 22, 4, 0, 103, 8, 103, 1, 20, 6
The approximate score after 15 overs was: 45/4, 80/3, 70/2, 90/0, 55/2, 85/0, 80/2, 60/4, 52/4
* approximate score since I couldn't find the exact 15 over score sometimes.
It does indicate at a poor performance from the top order where on 7 occasions (out of 9 innings), the team lost the 1st wicket with < 25 on the board. On 5 out of those 7 occasions, the 15 over score was < 75 (which is 5 runs/over). On 3 out of those 5 occasions, 4 wickets had gone in the first 15 overs! That isn't exactly good top order batting, is it? So much so four our much vaunted batting lineup, eh? Come on India, you dont want to go away from Australia with the tails between your legs. Fight, the series is not yet over. Go back to the motivation shown in the Test series!
Politics
The Washington Post editorial says that while the Bush administration has rightly accepted Musharraf as an ally, it must accept the reality that Pakistan's actions threaten U.S. and global security more than al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein ever did.
Link of the day
Ever wondered where all those names spammers use come from? Try a random name generator, play around with the obscurity factor.
Labels: al-qaeda
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Politics
Minutes of evidence taken before the Liaison Committee by the UK PM Tony Blair.
According to Pervez Musharraf, the Kashmir issue would be resolved by the year end. If this isn't wishful thinking, nothing is. Clearly Musharraf is trying to put pressure on an Indian government which has chosen to engage Pakistan just when elections are due. An issue which has been boiling for half a century, over which several wars and skirmishes have been fought, several thousand lives lost on both sides, cannot be resolved just because of an overnight bonhomie. Resolving Kashmir will take time. It should take time, urgency in this matter will just leave us all with yet another half baked solution like partition.
As Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan seeks pardon, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei feels that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Read Dr. Khan's statement.
Link of the day
Amazon has launched a 1-Click payment mechanism to make a contribution to the various US Presidential election candidates.
Check out how quite a few now dead/defunct sites used to look.
Technology
Should you have a license to operate a computer? Should you be punished if you click on an attachment which has a virus in it?
Humour
The diary of Osama bin Laden.
Labels: aq khan, jammu and kashmir, proliferation
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Politics
More details revealed about Pakistan's role in nuclear technology proliferation. General Musharraf and Gen Jehangir Karamat, the army chief from 1996 to 1998, had known of and approved the barter of nuclear technology for North Korean ballistic missile technology. Warhead designs link Libya's nuclear program to Pakistan.
Compare search results for India with search results for Pakistan. Most of the search results for India are economy and technology related. Most of the search results for Pakistan are related to nuclear proliferation and terrorism.
In a shocking development, Peter Bleach, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the 1995 Purulia arms drop case, was released today on a Presidential pardon. It is totally hypocritical of a government which demands that Pakistan hand over 20 wanted terrorists. Peter Bleach, if public memory is short, is the prime accused in the air drop of an arms consignment, possibly to militant groups in Bengal. He was arrested along with five Latvian air crew in late 1995. They were all convicted in Jan 2000 and sentenced to life. However the Latvian crew were released six months later under a Presidential clemency. Random ramblings didn't exist then (even though the random rambler did), otherwise you'd have read about it here for sure!
Surely if it was proved that Bleach and his associates were guilty of trying to wage or aid a war against India, they cannot be let off. I think there maybe some dealings between the governments, possibly in extraditing criminals wanted by Indian law, who're seeking asylum from the UK.
Humour
This chap, whose resume you see below, is sure to put most UNIX gurus and wizards out of their jobs. Notice the 4th skill he lists: the one that is circled.
Link of the day
Who owns the moon? What are the traffic rules in space? The European Center for Space Law answers these and much more!
Economy
Former Singapore PM Lee Kuan Yew on the pitfalls of protectionism
Labels: aq khan, proliferation
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Cricket
The umpiring this season in Australia has generally been quite poor, both in the Tests and one-dayers. I haven't watched too much of the other cricket happening, but I daresay, the situation isn't that much better elsewhere. The main problems which are contributing to the poor performanc by the umpires are:
- The complexity of their job.
- Having to spend upto 6 hours in a day in the hot sun concentrating on every ball.
- The usage of replay screens at grounds.
Wouldn't it make life easier for the umpires and result in better decision making if their load was decreased, just through better resource usage? At any international match, there are four umpires of whom two are on the field, one is the third umpire and the other is the reserve umpire. I am fairly sure it makes a lot of sense to use all four umpires. The assumption is that the two off-field umpires are also qualified, that's the reason they're appointed in the first place. For a test match, you could have this scenario. Lets say the umpires are A, B, C & D. There're 15 sessions in a Test.
| Session | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| Umpires | A & B | B & C | C & D | D & A | A & B | B & D | C & D | D & A | A & B | A & C | C & D | D & A | A & B | B & C | C & D |
The total number of sessions and the number of consecutive sessions on the same day is:
| Umpire | Total Sessions | Consecutive |
| A | 8 | 2 |
| B | 7 | 3 |
| C | 7 | 3 |
| D | 8 | 2 |
While umpires A & D have 8 sessions to manage, it is offset by the fact that they don't do as many consecutive sessions as B & C do.
The other issue about the ICC and umpires which intrigues me is why umpires & match referees' reports on captains' and players' conduct is made public and charges are laid as soon as play is over, while captains' reports on umpires are never made public. Surely the spectators and TV audiences across the world, as well as the players who participated in the match, have a right to prompt action.
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Link of the day
WARNING. Today's link may lead you to porn stuff. Its purely your own click.
Newly launched porn search engine Booble has been served a trademark infringement notice by Google.
I evaluated myself on The Political Compass. Apparently I am a libertarian leftist with scores of Economic Left/Right: -2.00 & Social
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.79. The truth probably is in between ... that I'm confused :)
Religion
Another Haj tragedy at Mecca. Somehow the tragedies seem as much of an annual happening as the Haj itself. There must be something catastrophic about the Haj itself. In 1994, 270 pilgrims were killed in a stampede. In 1997, a fire burnt 340 men and women to death in the pilgrims' camp. In 1998 180 were trampled to death and 35 in 2001. I'm fairly sure yesterday's count will exceed 350 at some point of time in the near future. Ironically enough, the stampede happened when the pilgrims approached to throw stones at pillars representing the devil.
Stampedes at Kumbh melas, Sabarimalai, Mahamahams etc. are quite common when we talk about Hindu religious festivals/events. However I can't really remember similar tragedies happening in Christianity (perhaps football stampedes such as Hillsborough and Japanese/Chinese girls jostling with one another when David Beckham appears in public don't count). What is it about Hinduism and Islam that causes these tragedies?
Perhaps it is time for religion to be shut up firmly within the confines of your home/heart. Mass congregations for a religious purpose must be banned, to avoid such tragedies as well as to avoid communal conflagrations.
Technology
Do you get too much spam? There maybe a few solutions.
The search wars are just about to start. It's going to be fun!
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All opinions expressed are mine alone. My employers (past, present or future) are in no way connected to the opinions expressed here.
All pictures, photographs used are copyrights of the original owners. I do not intend to infringe on any copyright.
Pictures and photographs are used here to merely accentuate and enhance the content value to the readers.
