Dhoni, Khel Ratna and BCCI

News that Dhoni is being awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna was both amusing and disgusting. Amusing because it showed yet again the true face of BCCI and disgusting because Dhoni is undeserving of the award...atleast at this point in time. A few years from now , maybe...but right now..completely undeserving.

The only cricketer to be awarded this is Sachin Tendulkar.. and here is a quick glance at his statistics as at the end of the second Test against SL last week

149 tests 11857 runs @ 54.64 avg, 39 centuries and 42 wickets as a dependable support bowler

417 ODIs 16361 runs @ 44.33 avg, 42 centuries and 152 wickets

And this is Dhoni

29 tests 1418 runs @ 33.76 avg, 1 century and 82 victims behind the stumps
115 ODIs 3600 runs @ 48 avg, 4 centuries and 153 behind the stumps

Dhoni is not even a patch on Sachin. And Sachin was awarded after more than a decade in the field. Can anyone dispute the little master's brilliance or achievements?

Let's for a moment forget Sachin as a comparison. Is Dhoni a better cricketer and achiever than a Rahul Dravid or a Anil Kumble. A top of the head recall of numbers show that Dravid has over 10000 runs in both forms of the game, over 20 Test centuries, over 175 catches and counting and has lead India to overseas series victories in West Indies and England.. Only Wadekar has done this in the history of Indian cricket. Not even Sourav ( unarguably the best captain India has had) comes close .

And the grand old man of the current team, the man with the ne'er say die attitude that spills over to everyone else in the team, the only one to lead India to victory in Perth ( no team other than the West Indies have achieved this feat) the only one in the last four decades, maybe five to have taken all ten wickets in an innings, the leading bowler by a mile...Anil Kumble.

Where does Dhoni figure here ? With less than 4 years in international cricket and a victory in a 'carnival cricket' that opened the floodgates for BCCI's alter ego - the IPL - to rake in the moolah ensured that he gets nominated for the highest award in sports in the country.

Is this the current Government's return of thanks for the victory in the "no-confidence" vote.

Shibu Soren from Jharkhand voting for the UPA...and Dhoni the famous son of Jharkhand rewarded.

This is a small extract of what the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna is all about

"The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (RGKR) is India’s highest honour given for achievement in sports. The words "Khel Ratna" literally translate to "Sports Gem" in Hindi. The award is named after the late Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India. It carries a medal, a scroll of honour and a substantial cash component. The award was instituted in the year 1991-92 to supply the lack of a supreme national accolade in the field of sports. Predating the RGKR are the Arjuna awards that have always been given to outstanding sportspersons in each of many sporting disciplines every year. The Khel Ratna was devised to be an overarching honour, conferred for outstanding sporting performance, whether by an individual or a team, across all sporting disciplines in a given year.

Whereas the trend has generally been for one outstanding sportsperson to be honoured every year, that is not mandatory.The award need not be bestowed if no candidate is found to have met historic standards of excellence. "

Is the Twenty 20 World cup the highest achievement we as a country have witnessed?

Is Dhoni the best cricketer India has produced after Sachin?

Is Dhoni a sporting gem?

Has Dhoni demonstarted historic standards of excellence?

Was the Twenty 20 a team effort or the individual brilliance of Dhoni?

Is this BCCI's way of incentivising its revenue generation model.

One thing is clear...Awards have lost their meaning, importance and sanctity.

Splendor when it rises - splendor when it goes down

Captured a few moments with the Sun... Rising in Mahabalipuram and setting in Goa...

Beauty of Manali

A serene place..a family by your side to holiday with.. what more does one need.

Could not make it all the way to Rohtang Pass due to heavy snow... did we miss something?

From other visitors who have been there..done that.. guess we did... maybe next time...till then will cherish what we experienced :)

And - the ultimatum !!

A post after the issue of a veiled warning in the name of affirmative action... July 2006

Is it not amazing how the age old adage "Power corrupts..Absolute Power corrupts absolutely" holds its own against a lot of other equal or sometimes more powerful sayings like "Honesty is the best policy" or "Nothing succeeds like success".

And if one were to have a marathon competition among the three,the last two would probably fall by the wayside. The former would reach the goal with no signs of palpitations or sweat and challenge other adages for a re-run.

Want to try...use the largest arena...the playground of Indian politics.

The Congress, after the well orchestrated announcement on the Quota has taken the next step in issuing a veiled ultimatum to the world acclaimed and brilliantly managed private sector.

2 years to build in Quota based appointments or else.....

The answers for the new found confidence of the ruling party to go ahead with these announcements, is not far to seek. With the biggest oposition in a perennial state of disarray and the Left being what it always was .... fighting for its right and being left behind, the Congress has its tail up. And history tells us that a power hungry Congress is the worst epidemic that can hit a country like India. Having been in power for two years at a stretch after more than a decade of forced hibernation, it can only wreck havoc.

Do we see a similarity here with that character in Ramayan..Kumbhakaran ??

Back to the ultimatum itself..what does this mean for Corporate India ??

The likes of top notch companies like Tatas, Infosys, Wipro, Reliance....will have to set aside a percentage of their vacancies for the OBCs. Companies which have hiterto been visiting the IITs and IIMs and picking up people based on "merit and competence" need to replace it with "mediocrity and caste". The "Quota quagmire" may even need these companies to replace some of their existing performing staff to fulfil their committments.And what about theIBMs, the Intels, the Dells,the Microsofts and Oracles of the world. What would they do ??

Incidentaly, all these companies follow the policy of EEO or Equal Opportunity employment. Irrespective of caste,creed, religion or sex, if a person is best suited for a job, he /she would be given the opportunity to contribute to that role. Do these companies throw these policies out of the window to accede to the whims and fancies of a few self-centered politicians ?? Policies that have held these companies in good stead as against politicians with no integrity ??

Lot of companies have some aspect of work reserved for people. These are essentially for WWEs (Widowed Woman Entrepreneurs) , WVs (War Veterans) and disabled people. These are noble gestures that need to be emulated...not the caste based reservations

Given that the Government of the land has the "absolute power" to pass legislations that can make or break constitutions, countries or companies, it can be expected that draconian laws will be passed that will cripple the very existence of the 'bread winners' for this country.

Does this sound the death knell for Corporate India ?? What are the avenues available for them to make these corrupt & power hungry politicians see sense ??

From the actions and reactions in the past few weeks, it is becoming increasingly clear that all political parties have the same agenda. This prompts me to leave you with these questions

1) Are we destined to be consigned to history books as a "failed country" ??

2) Do we , the "Intelligent Indians" deserve this ??

3) When will the "awakening" ever happen ??

One redeeming feature of this ultimatum is the time period....2 years which is 730 days ....17520 hours.....over a million minutes......a long time indeed...
Things can change in just a few minutes...and most of those changes have been for the common benefit of mankind...

O I T R V M

OITRVM stands for,as you would have realized ---- Objects In The Rear View Mirror.

In the previous organization where I worked, I had the wonderful opportunity of leading a team of young and enthusiastic accounting professionals straight out of campus. High on energy and competitive, they were a bunch of go-getters. And as all high achieving youngsters, they had their own set of problems with people, peers, superiors, managers et al.

My oft repeated advice to them was...It takes different people to make this world and as we move along towards our ultimate goal, all these people, issues, concerns become Objects in the rear view mirror.

I sometimes wonder if this is actually true ! Do people , actions and reactions actually remain as bygones or do they revisit you time and again ? Does one want them to remain as OITRVM ?

If one were to correlate this to a drive on a highway, we do pass a lot of vehicles, towns, villages and fields. Some interesting...some not so.If something grabs your attention, you do look into the rear view mirror to catch a fleeting glimpse of the things you have raced past. Sometimes you reverse and spend sometime to enjoy them. If you like them, you tend to re-visit them sometime later.

This is the same with some relationships and I have a similar experience with some of my colleagues in the earlier organization.LAN and PVS....two immensely likeable people...Before I move on, let me give an insight into what these letters mean. Well !! Just the initials of the people ..makes it short and sweet. These initials would invariably be two or three letters.... One letter as an initial is very ambiguous and four letters a strict no..no.

Okay..now that you have the idea of what these three letters mean, let me proceed.

Yes.. LAN and PVS are two extremely different people with possibly divergent views. One, an immensely talented communicator and the other rather quiet but with a subtle sense of humor. Both with responsible and energy sapping corporate positions but with an equal amount of people friendliness. One on the wrong side of the thirties and the other the right side of forties...but both on the perfect side of life.

Why these two people form a part of this write up is purely because of the influence they have had on me in the course of my career. Things that one watches and learns, things that one assimilates in the long discussions that we would get into. These are people you would not want to lose contact with irrespective of where one is or what one is doing.

That is when the writing becomes much clearer "Objects in the rear view mirror are much closer than they appear"

This is an extract from my personal file … a small re-hash of the famous Beatles song titled “Help” and was “created” in the aftermath of India’s dismal World Cup performance and Greg Chappel’s impending exit

Help! I need somebody …

Help! Not just anybody

Help! You know I need Sourav … Help!

When I was new...So much newer than today

I needed only More’s help in every other way

And now those days are gone,I’m not so self-assured

Now I find the Chairman has a mind

And they are closing the door

Sourav…Help me if you can,I’m feeling down

And I do appreciate you helped me the last time around

Help me get my coaching stint back on the ground

Won’t you please please help me?

And now my finances have changed in … oh!! so many ways

My survival seems to depend on your grace

And every now and then I feel so insecure

I know that I just need you … like I’ve never done before

Help me as only you can, I’m feeling ashamed

But I do appreciateyou being ’round

Help me get my self respect back to where it belonged

Oh Sourav…Won’t you please please help me?

ps : Apologies to The Beatles …

Arjun Singh's Quota of Politics

This is a post I had created in 2006... reposting here..

It is indeed disappointing that we have to revisit this chapter in Indian history after close to a decade and a half. The issues remain the same. Only the actors are different with the common surname of Singh...Vishwa Pratap Singh to Arjun Singh, the vote bank politics have not changed one bit.

If in 15 years, the OBC's still need to be protected, it is a cause of concern for the Indian populace. What have successive Governments done to improve the lot of the so-called backward classes...the people whose parents are in cushy jobs in Government , thanks to their appointments under the reserved category a few years back. They have made their fortune by good means or bad, have their children studying in good schools with the luxury of knowing that irrespective of their performance, they would get admissions in better institutions. And anyways, they are not looking at Indian Universities...How else will their parents be able to spend their wealth that has been accumulated over years of living and working in a protected environment.

And Mr Singh, instead of visiting these visible areas of imbalance has decided to play his political card. The same set of people who cried hoarse that the syllabi was being moved to a pro-Hindutva way of life, have decided to split the populace on the basis of caste, creed and class ..ALL OVER AGAIN.

What is of importance to note is the stoic silence of all political parties. The esteemed Prime Minister who stands for intellect, the President who has worked his way up the ladder without looking for favors.... all remain silent as the ugly story of "India breaking" unfolds on the gullible masses.

The ones who stand for anti-quota are the students and the medicos...

The ones who take out pro-quota rallies are headed by politicians (current and ex)...those who want to hold on to their chairs and those who want to join the bandwagon to reclaim their lost positions in the political field.

There in lies the story of India...the country of dreams...slowly turning into a country of nightmares