97/118 ...Not a Rational Number

Italian mathematician, Giuseppe Peano defined a rational number as the fraction of two integers. A proper rational number means that the denominator of the fraction is greater than the numerator. The fraction 97/118 would have fallen into that category. The fact that India ranked 97th of 118 in global hunger index makes the number only improper and completely irrational. This might be an obvious number, considering the fact that India, once called Sone ki chidiya is racing to the top in the number of people born on its soil.

About 20 crore (200 million) Indians are hungry and undernourished. This is roughly the same as Brazil's entire population. Ironically, India and Brazil compete against each other in every aspect like growth rate, GDP and poverty! While growth rate and GDP feature regularly as topics of discussion and in the headlines of newspapers, poverty seldom finds any reference. Should the newspapers then have a separate section devoted to poverty like the business, cinema and sports sections? Politicians are busy, executing the needs of the majority, appeasing the minorities and making news whereas people, with their artiodactylic behaviour let the 'shepherds' dictate what they should be bothered about. Journalists on the other hand are also busy, with some of them trying to glorify the surgical strikes and some others doing all possible research so as to discredit the strikes. India is home to 15% of the world's poor people. Does this not find enough fuel for the politicians, journalists and people to discuss about? Definitely, debate moderators who out shout debaters will have a lot to tell the nation about its poverty.

Improved or improving??

India is the largest producer of fresh fruits, tropical fruits, fresh vegetables, potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, brinjal (eggplant), cow and buffalo milk, rice, wheat and mainly pulses. India exports about 10 billion dollars worth horticulture produce, second only after China. How is that both the countries are also placed top two in the number of hungry mouths? Is India exporting all its produce without feeding itself first? A hungry man can never satisfy other's hunger. Even though India is the largest producer of pulses, we import pulses from countries like South Africa and Mozambique. Why? And why, with so much surplus of pulses, the fares are so high and people are still hungry? People are still eating spiced up, flavoured Biriyani with Mirchi ka Salon garnered with rich cashew. Food grains are being stashed away so that prices go up and since rice and pulses are the staple food, people are going to buy them, whatever the cost. But what about those who cannot afford the prices? Good business can be done honestly as well. Lee Iacocca and J.R.D. Tata would have loved to explain on that. As said by the historian, Ram Guha who obviously picked it from Mahatma Gandhi, "A true nationalist needs to accept the dirt in his country so as to clean it up."

On the bright side, India has become better in the past decades. Poverty has fallen from 36% of the population in 1990-91 to 15% now. The hungry mouths however have increased. Thus comes into picture the biggest menace in the country, over population. Can we find an answer to this problem?

http://www.thp.org/knowledge-center/know-your-world-facts-about-hunger-poverty/

M.S.Dhoni: No Story Told

In Ramoji film city, people click photos with their head jutting out of the face of one of Ravan's ten faces. Some people photoshop themselves shaking hands with Amitabh and Sachin or hugging Deepika Padukone. This is how one feels when he sees Sushant Singh Rajput's face morphed into Dhoni's when he is surrounded by other Indian cricketers. We do not know who to feel sorry for. Dhoni or Sushant. Apart from such morphological changes, the movie, MS Dhoni: the untold story has other routine, illogical stuff like a failed love story and a hasty marriage both which are in the movie for an obvious reason: songs. The movie is more about Sushant's imitation of Dhoni than the story of Dhoni himself. It is very good as a movie, a three hour magic well weaved by Neeraj Pandey but it somehow does not look like a great biography. That makes one think whether Dhoni's life achievements so far have content enough to fit in a bollywood movie.

Seriously, the way we in India are making biopics is not satisfactory. Are we so short of legends that we have to make biographies of young cricketers or are the players scared of the eventual thing that is being forgotten by people? Today, not even a cricket aspirant would recognise G.R.Viswanath if he even enters the Chinnaswamy stadium. While it is Attenboroughs and Browns who make movies on legends like Gandhi and Ramanujan, we in India make movies on olympic bronze winning and cricket world cup winning athletes. Every person has his/her own story and every athlete has immense hard work and perseverance behind success. It would not be a surprise if tomorrow a movie is made on the life of Hardik Pandya or Sania Mirza. It is quite shameful that no Indian film director could make a movie on our first prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. None of the people care because we are all too engrossed in trying to find evidence for something the army had done to protect us. Of course, when the public has such volatile memory, why do movie producers want to dig old stories when they can make money on existing 35 year old 'legends' who successfully captained winning teams. It would be an easy way out for Dhoni as well because, thirty years down the lane, it is highly unlikely that a film director would consider making a movie about him.

The known story

Having said about the unnecessity of a movie on M.S.Dhoni, the making of a fine movie needs a mention. MS Dhoni: the untold story is any other movie with an added feature that it is about Dhoni. While the first half of the movie talked about Dhoni's passion towards playing cricket for India, post interval was all about what people already know about. While time was devoted to show his achievements as a captain like the 2007 world cup final and 2011 final, the movie fails to show many other memorable victories that Dhoni had brought us through his batting talent. He was a wicket keeper-batsmen before he became a captain. The movie also showed his feuds with senior players but neglected his friendly character and his extraordinary show of respect to elders in his first test match as captain. Music did the magic for the movie. The background score brings in more passion on the part of the audience towards Dhoni. There should have been more time devoted to the way Saurav Ganguly selected Dhoni to the playing XI for the India-Pakistan match at Visakhapatnam. There is no mention about his wicketkeeping talent nor his father selling his scooter to buy Mahi his first cricket kit.
Yes, there was no story told about MS Dhoni. It is just a recollection of some of Dhoni's old and famous matches with a good background music and excellent imitation by Sushant Singh Rajput. Dhoni will be a happy man. So will be his fans.

The Morgan Effect

Back in 2004-05, when Sachin Tendulkar was facing continued failures, mainly due to his tennis elbow problem, Indian fans condemned him and some wanted him to quit cricket. We know what all he achieved after that! Ten years later, when a Russian tennis star confessed she did not know who Sachin was, the entire nation exploded. Forget Sachin, Sharad Pawar who is a living legend for the corrupt, was supported by one and all in India when he was pushed from the stage by the Champions trophy winning Australian team in 2006.

We Indians are a funny lot. We are so patriotic that we let not one bee sting our country and its integrity. But among ourselves, we love to do that one thing: stab one another in the back nicely. Well, India's got talent too, Mr. Morgan. Lets not blame him, it is a natural wonder for any person to see one and a fourth billion people celebrating two medals. But Piers Morgan does not know the Indian way in which we are used to sharing one Roti over ten people in a household and we love the bonding. There is similar bonding in the country men after two Indian women succeeded at the wonderful sporting event that is the Rio olympics, a true banner-man of  world peace and health.

Health reminds us of two unhealthy things about India. India has a gift (?) of population, the best renewable source of energy. Those people have gotten themselves a beautiful gift of laziness, the enemy of sports. Sports is human nature but laziness isn't a human virtue. We Indians eat a lot of sweets. That is probably the reason why PV Sindhu failed to win the gold medal, she is too sweet to snatch away victory from the Spaniard. But seriously, does she require so many gifts? Crores of rupees, BMW cars, plots for house. Do we want to turn her into a cricketer? What are we encouraging? medals or sports? It is one thing to encourage players to win medals and another to encourage people to play sports. If one had followed Deepika Kumari in the archery re curve, one would have known the amount of focus that she had. But no one remembers her because she has not won any medal. It is like our athletes are remembered only once in four years, during the Olympics. Can we imagine Kohli's name chanted only once in four years for the world cup? Talking about cricket, even though Sachin has come out of other sports now, why could he have not done that while he was an active cricketer?

Missed the BMW target!? :(

It is the medal that got them the BMW, not their passion!

How can other sports pick up in India? Unlike cricket, many of the sports are post-independence games and it is true that we need more time before India becomes a strong presence in every game. We have enough coaching academies; maybe not; but still, focus should be on developing the players physically and mentally; For example, what do the archers need? better focus. Mental training is required than physical - mental training to tune the body physically; This would prove to be quite cheap and in fact quite indigenous. We fail to identify the greatness hidden in our backyard. The US athletes do yoga whereas ours pray to gods; they have a control over their physique whereas we eat junk food - all possible junk food. Since, we are an open minded nation, we eat the junk from every corner of the world: Mexican, Italian, Chinese and of course, Indian.
We should encourage sports and sports players than medal winners - that might be good in another sense as well that is, with more competition at home, there is better quality from the country. Star sports is taking good steps towards this. This might get us more medals. Because, in the end only medals matter!! 

Out through the mouth!

88*28.317*3600 = 8970825.6

This is the amount of water that flowed into the sea in a day from the Godavari river! In words, that is nine million liters of water. Nine million! In just one day, 88 cubic feet of water rushed into the sea per second from the river. And the figure is just calculated over just one hour. Not two months ago, in the same regions that the Godavari flows through, 25 trains carrying a total of 5 million liters of water were busy trying to moisten the drought dead lands. Politicians and activists were debating whether the Indian Premier League should be held at all or no, as a solution to tackle the drought. Surprisingly and not so surprisingly, not many seem to bat an eye and the river is interested only in mixing with the salty sea water.

Well, what would one expect? The Indian cricket team is in the West Indies and ProKabaddi does not seem to need any water to maintain its 'turf.' Politicians are busy solving their conflicts over river water sharing but not the flood water management. Courts are busy deciding under whose jurisdiction justice falls into. People in the lower regions of the river and near the delta are anyway used to displacement due to floods. Be it Assam or East Godavari in Andhra Pradesh, people expect floods every now and then. Why should they be deprived of their habits? Governments are happy to spend a little sum on effective displacement of those people. For benefits to be reaped every five years, there should be such floods every two years at least. Rivers like Brahmaputra and Godavari are difficult to control. There have been irrigation projects on them but no flood management projects. Is there no way to save all that water from going waste? Ground water levels are low with land ready to absorb any amount of water and hold like a sponge, reservoirs are at dead storage levels with dams strong enough to hold water to the fullest. Surely there can be ways found to use the flood water.

It is very sad to note that the Jayakwadi dam which serves the Marathwada region which was plagued by the drought is still running at its lowest water levels. Also, the Ujjani dam on Bhima river near Solapur has a huge capacity which was not completely utilized during the floods. River water has many uses. Irrigation is only one of them. Catchment areas are useful for groundwater replenishment and water diversion as well. If canals cannot be constructed for diverting flood water to smaller tanks for irrigation, there are other methods like lift irrigation which can be used to divert water to wherever needed. When states have MoUs between them about river water sharing, certainly they could discuss possible flood management solutions.

The Jayakwadi dam is the largest irrigation dam in Maharshtra and is not full

The solution could be anything. Multiple river integration is a distant dream. For now, probably the thermal power plants, papermills and sugarcane factories could be where the flood water is diverted to, a jump from the usual in which water meant for irrigation is diverted to those places. It is quite easy to do so because the infrastructure to divert water to those places is already there, unlike cultivated land. How much hydro electric energy can be derived from the floods while keeping them at check. What about small check dams at strategic places? For once, low cost projects which help people rather than contractor alone can be constructed. Have we forgotten how to make barrages? That is probably a good solution. Should the nine million liters only enter the sea along with hundreds of homes and property? Can there be no canals dug only for flood crisis? Or maybe not. Because when there are no floods, these canals will be used as dumping areas only aggravating the flood!!

In the words of Amitav Ghosh, "Solutions to such problems cannot be dealt at individual level. Government alone can take initiative when it comes to disaster management."

Human shield - an Easy Target

It was September of 2011. The entire nation was discussing the mesmerizing, valiant effort that Rahul Dravid put up in the England test series. Everybody praised that poster boy of the gentleman game for having his name on the Lord's honors board. No one cared two hoots about the fact that the then Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, D. Subbarao's term was coming to an end. People did not take to Orkut, Facebook and Twitter to raise support for an extension of his term. It was however, of course extended understandably by Dr. Manmohan Singh. In fact, it is to the credit of D. Subbarao and the Prime Minister during his term, Dr. Manmohan Singh, a former governor himself, that the post of RBI governor has gained popularity.

Why do people now so want Prof. Raghuram Rajan to continue badly? He of course is a firebrand officer, keen to bring about changes and tremendous reforms. It is very true that Dr. Rajan has brought beautiful reforms like bringing down inflation and reviving the banking sector among many other things. Bringing about such reforms is the purpose of the Apex bank of India. Is Dr. Rajan being glorified for doing justice to his job honestly? But why not D. Subbarao back then. In fact, Duvvuri Subbarao is credited to have steered India safely through the 2008 Great Depression even though he had to tackle with it right from day one at office. Does that not demand similar glorification?

They steered change

Individualism

This is no political campaign for elections nor is it a cricket game, for us to glorify a single person, support him and pray he works well or plays well. No, this is the head of an institution which more or less controls the economic policy of the country. No, the RBI governor is not a representative of the people. He has got higher responsibilities and of course requires to be highly qualified for that. He is unique among people. He understands things which common man cannot. A daily wage labour has no clue what inflation means and how it happens. All he is worried about is, Why is the tamaatar that I bought for thirty rupees a kilo two months ago is now hundred rupees a kilo? Now, just because we have information at hand easily, let us common men not pretend that we understand how Dr. Rajan brought about the real wonderful changes so well. In fact he definitely is dynamic, especially as he talks about Make for India to boost Make in India: a brave explanation. But no, we do not understand what CPI, WPI, NPA, LA etc mean. He spent years understanding economics. We did not. So, people, let us not pretend that we support Dr. Rajan for the reforms he dutifully brought about.

Swamy and Swaminomics

So then why is that people support Dr. Rajan fervently and want him to continue even after he himself expressed to go back to teaching? Definitely it is because of one person: Subramanian Swamy. Giving importance to his claims is as bad as giving importance to Donald Trump's claims about making America great or Gautam Gambhir's claim that he will make a comeback to Indian team. Or are people scared that Subramanian Swamy can convince people with his claims? Anyone who know the professor Rajan would say how good his credentials are. He is capable of making the common people understand the subject through is teachings. Definitely he is going to do very well there. He at least will stay away from fake admiration. Here, people have stooped to levels as low as glorifying Dr. Rajan for watching a cricket match from a non-vip gallery. It is interesting to see Amartya Sen speak for Dr. Rajan. Other 'dignified' people like Swaminathan Aiyar, economist brother of Mani Shankar Aiyar says that Raghuram Rajan gone is billions of investment gone. All this is only a way to get back at Swamy. If Dr. Rajan is being glorified just because Subramanian Swamy opposes him, and is being used as a human shield and made an easy target, it is an insult and disrespect to one of the finest economic thinkers in the world at the moment. It would be an insult to the nice economists the country has in plenty if people are convinced that investments won't come without Rajan.

He steered the ship like a true captain

The prime minister, in an interview recently, very rightly said that the appointment or extension of an RBI governor is an administrative matter and need not attract media attention. In his address to the U.S congress, he praised Paul Krugman, a possible hint that Rajan is not wanted by his government. Who the government appoints is, like it always has been, upto the government. It would of course be their downfall if they don't appoint someone as competitive as Dr. Rajan or D. Subbarao or Y.V. Reddy or many other well deserved governors we had. This is no fashion or cinema related institute. Of course, certainly with the appointments of the Chauhans and the Nihalanis, it is quite natural for the common man to be scared!
It would be wise for the one-eyed king to not poke himself in the only good eye!

Speed Thrills!

"Wooooo!!" Mahati heard her friend who was riding pillion on the motorbike that whizzed past their scooter. "Shit, shit, shit!!" she also heard her friend on another scooter who was already throttling at maximum after regretting slowing down. Just as she was being nudged by her pillion on the scooter, "Cmon, accelerate, go after them," another friend on a 250 cc motorbike overtook all the three bikes in the front. All the friends were enjoying themselves. They were all returning from a weekend party organised in a pub in a swank locality in the city. The pub was one of the few places in the city that was open till late in the night. They stopped while returning at a restaurant famous for its Biryani which also stays open late into the night.

Mahati and another friend who were sober took driving charges. They were well in the speed limits when a policeman stopped the group. The sober ones did the talking. The high ones did the acting. They convinced the policeman that they came to have food and went into the restaurant realising that they really were hungry after the dancing and a lot of dehydration. They were energetically charged and still high. The sober ones took to riding scooters, not realising the huge mistake they made, that is to give 250 cc motorbikes to drunken drivers, when they could instead be given 110 cc scooters. It all started when one scooter and started a fun race with a motorbike. Mahati was in the front, oblivious to anything happening behind her when the race intensified and people sped past.

On the last bike, the drunk guy and his even more drunk pillion were humiliated being in the very end, that too possessing such a motorbike. They decided to show who the boss was. As they sped past Mahati to overtake others and lead the race, she could only see them as a blur, a streak of black and red in the bottom and bright colours on the top. Fourteen kilometers were covered in a matter of ten minutes. The road was narrow and unimportant in the peak of the day. So the police never bothered about it, even in the night. The signpost bearing the speed limit only stood there as a mute spectator, as an unwanted piece of scrap, as if it did not belong to that place. The non functional CCTV camera stood there, like a scarecrow, hopelessly trying to control a few who respected its presence.

The road gave no room for them to overtake, so they decided to take the 'royal' route. They found a gap in the median and jumped into the opposite lane, easily speeding past the rest of their friends, booing them, booing their scooter and a mediocre 180 cc motorbike. The function of a vehicle is no longer easy transportation. It is the style and the looks (added to the Indian obsession of mileage). Just as they found another gap in the median so as to enter the race track, a truck came into view from the curve onto the road. The 250 cc motorbike's brakes were good enough for the price spent on it. The tires were as good as they are being advertised during cricket matches on TV. The sudden brake resulted in a wheelie by the 250 cc motorbike and overjoyed by this achievement, the biker shifted to the race track and sped away, winning the race, justifying the bike.

Mahati was not happy. She just spent time alone. She stopped talking to her friends. They did not bother. They had important things like Johnny Walker to deal with right then. They all slept through the day. They were all too preoccupied to read the morning newspaper which read, ".....................The fatal accident occurred when the car driver had no time to apply brakes when the truck stopped abruptly, because of a rash motorist breaking rules."

With attention comes motivation

22 April 1998,
In the heat of Sharjah, there was a storm, popularly called the ‘Desert Storm.’ The epi-center of this storm was a twenty five year old cricketer, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Amidst the chanting of ‘Indiaaaa Indiaa’  and ’Sachiinn Sachinn,’ as he stormed upon the bowlers, charged and lofted spinners for sixes, pulled fast bowlers for fours, he took the world of cricket by storm. People were not only stunned but mesmerised by his unique straight drives, cover drives and late cuts. VVS Laxman, on the other end would have felt wonderful for having partnered Sachin in the show. The Aussie bowlers would have thought why on Earth it had to be them on the receiving end. The spectators would have felt more than satisfied for what they had paid for. Cricket freaks would have been like, ‘Maybe it is time we call him God.’ And fifteen hundred miles East of Sharjah, young cricket aspirants would have padded up, inspired to go on to the field and prove themselves. MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli are two among those hundreds of cricket bhakts.
If one asks Sachin what inspired him to take cricket seriously, he definitely mentions the 1983 world cup victory by the Indian team led by Kapil Dev. Surely, that is a milestone in the history of sports in India. No sport is followed as passionately as team sports. Because it is a team. In an individual sport, one can only like a single person but to support a team is more exciting because one gets to support an individual as well as the nation/team one loves. Maybe if India had won the FIFA world cup before winning the cricket world cup, those hundreds of youngsters would have gotten inspired to take up football and who knows, we would have won the 2010 football world cup! It is that spectacle of winning a huge sport event for the first time that led Indians to get motivated towards something. That created a hope that we could dominate and rise on the world platform in some form to prove ourselves. That moment of pride led to India loving cricket like it does now. This however though, eclipsed another moment of pride for India: an Indian-born had won the Nobel prize that year!

Sachin took the Aussies by a storm and Indian cricket to a higher level

25 March 2016,
In the heat of Mohali, amidst the chanting of ’Indiaaaa Indiaa’ and ’Viraatttt Viraatt,’ a twenty seven year old Kohli stormed upon, once again, the Aussie bowlers. The way he paced his innings, running singles when his partner Yuvraj was injured, converting the singles into doubles once Dhoni came in, then going after the bowlers once he got the momentum was what a well matured cricketer would do. People were not only mesmerised but stunned by the way he constructed his innings. Rohit Sharma who got out cheaply must have felt why he is unable to play such well-tempered innings despite having immense talent. The Aussie bowlers might have thought, ‘Why we??’ The audience, reiterated why they love cricket and cricketers. Cricket freaks are like, ‘Maybe it is time we call him God.’ Young cricketers are padding up, inspired to go to the field and prove themselves.
Once in an interview, Rahul Dravid, a true mascot for cricket mentioned that the difference between a cricketer and a nurse is that the cricketer appears on the television. Well, that does make a huge difference, does it not? The media is interested in cricket because people are playing well and cricketers are playing well because the world is looking through the media. With greater attention, comes greater motivation. Why else would players, be it Sachin, Saurav, Dravid, Dhoni or Virat always thank audience for their support. In fact, Virat Kohli mentioned that the audience kept him going. Definitely media attention is what creates stronger teams for the country. And it is not that attention inspires people to play more. It is the vice versa, inspired people receive a lot of attention. With great motivation comes great attention!!

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What an innings! Virat stunned the cricket world

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What an innings! Virat stunned the cricket world

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What an innings! Virat stunned the cricket world

It is good to know see women’s cricket being given importance by the media. It might be the first time that post match shake-hand of women’s cricket in India was shown on TV. That is a good sign even though the prize money for women’s cricket is peanuts. Will the attention lead to a rise in the pay-check?

Hopefully in the future,
In the heat of Gwalior, the fort city of Jhansi Laxmi Bai, amidst chantings ’Indiaaaa Indiaa’ and ’Mithaliiii Mithalii,’ the cool headed Mithali Raj would be playing her signature cut shot and the straight drives, disrupting a strong lined Aussie bowling like it is nothing. The crowd and the nation will go berserk. Somewhere in those millions, few hundred girls will be inspired to pad up, inspired to go to the field and prove themselves!