Of late, the Indian media has gone into frenzied mode in trying to cover the scoop whether it is Shoaib-Sania issue, or Modi - Tharoor issue. One gets the feeling of being bombarded with the same information on all TV channels. If anybody wants to know whats Plagiarism, they can easily learn it by watching Indian News channels covering this issues. Coming back to the great Indian Paisa League IPL , as a commoner it wouldn't be surprising for your jaws to be drop on watching the amounts that floats around for the job one carries out for just 2 months. Whether its Player's salaries or glamor quotient associated with it, IPL seems to be unmatched in its persona. To throw some figures in, the two teams Kochi and Pune were bought together for a sum of 703 million USD , that's like 3138 crores in INR ; Indian Sports Budget for 2010-11 is 2069 cr in INR . Compare this with how our Hockey Players have to go on strike to get their salary hike few months ago, you get the big picture. What even more amuses me is, whether somebody can profit on buying teams at the huge rate, given that TV and sponsorship revenues will be split among 10 teams. The Pune team for example needs to make roughly 165 crore a year just to break even . May be Indian businessmen dont bother loosing a few hundred crores as long as their names are being splashed around with all the glitz and glamor. As if this is not enough, IPL is getting Tax breaks from State governments. People who own IPL teams are in Forbes Top 100 richest people; Not elderly people who get pensions . If the exchequer is going to get any increase tax revenues, its from events like this .
Now for the scandal, anyplace where there is loads of money,glamor ; The political class cant be far behind. I always used to wonder, Politicians run governments , but why do they also run Sports Organization, Whether its Suresh Kalmadi running Indian Olympic Association or Sharad Pawar running BCCI; Its not like they have MBA degrees from Ivy League Schools to prove their management capability. Ok , As of Shashi Tharoor, well he lobbied for a franchise for his home town and ended up being rewarded ( or bargained the same ) for his efforts perhaps. Media calls it Sweat equity. I bet there wasn't for any sweat or hard work in this. I was rather surprised to see the over whelming support in twitter for Tharoor. Even I like him, may be its because of stereotyping ( remember Anbae Sivam film , where Yugi Sethu cheats Madhavan in the train) we always believe how could such a smooth , well articulated English speaking guy be doing inside dealing. But to be fair, this what you call a minuscule case compared other corruption cases that have been slammed against Politicians. Just to mention one of tweets, a minister was let of, when 76 people were killed, but another minister was made to quit for 70 crores exchanged hands, forcing you ask the question; Is 70 crore more valuable ?? Perhaps Tharoor was a tad unlucky, considering other ministers who have held onto their Positions despite corruption charges on a larger scale. He had so much to offer, but ended up being embroiled in controversies, cumulative effect of which didn't help his matters at the end. As Swapan Dasgupta, an journo puts it "a man who sought 'new politics' was brought down because he couldn't rise above old politics". That perhaps really sums up the tragedy of Shashi Tharoor.
Lalit K Modi , he was awarded the CNBC Businessman of the year award for 2008/09. To his credit he did create the worlds 2nd richest league; Though the concept was already there in Europe with EPL . Atleast I will give him the credit for adapting the format to Indian Cricket ( unlike the bollywood films which fail in on copying Hollywood ones) .The feeling you get of him is that of a gritty business man, he somehow reminds me of an Investment banker in wall street. May be because the pay cheques handed in IPL can only be compared to Wall Street Bonuses. He is in stark contrast to fluid linguistic Tharoor. If you look at it from a corporate perspective, he is a kind of a whistleblower , who came out in the open. Perhaps , he used his whistle blowing discretely with regard to Tharoor . There might be many more discrepancies , for which Modi might not have whistled, even overlooked it many times. With IT department digging up the dirt, he may face the same fate as Tharoor . Its an irony that the League which he created , might also be the the reason which could cause his downfall. And Finally if your wondering who the Dhoka was for, its for cricket crazy Indian public who seemed to have unabashed loyalty towards to the game of Cricket; But its for only one game only , for which there is exploitation and problem starts.
Now for the scandal, anyplace where there is loads of money,glamor ; The political class cant be far behind. I always used to wonder, Politicians run governments , but why do they also run Sports Organization, Whether its Suresh Kalmadi running Indian Olympic Association or Sharad Pawar running BCCI; Its not like they have MBA degrees from Ivy League Schools to prove their management capability. Ok , As of Shashi Tharoor, well he lobbied for a franchise for his home town and ended up being rewarded ( or bargained the same ) for his efforts perhaps. Media calls it Sweat equity. I bet there wasn't for any sweat or hard work in this. I was rather surprised to see the over whelming support in twitter for Tharoor. Even I like him, may be its because of stereotyping ( remember Anbae Sivam film , where Yugi Sethu cheats Madhavan in the train) we always believe how could such a smooth , well articulated English speaking guy be doing inside dealing. But to be fair, this what you call a minuscule case compared other corruption cases that have been slammed against Politicians. Just to mention one of tweets, a minister was let of, when 76 people were killed, but another minister was made to quit for 70 crores exchanged hands, forcing you ask the question; Is 70 crore more valuable ?? Perhaps Tharoor was a tad unlucky, considering other ministers who have held onto their Positions despite corruption charges on a larger scale. He had so much to offer, but ended up being embroiled in controversies, cumulative effect of which didn't help his matters at the end. As Swapan Dasgupta, an journo puts it "a man who sought 'new politics' was brought down because he couldn't rise above old politics". That perhaps really sums up the tragedy of Shashi Tharoor.
Lalit K Modi , he was awarded the CNBC Businessman of the year award for 2008/09. To his credit he did create the worlds 2nd richest league; Though the concept was already there in Europe with EPL . Atleast I will give him the credit for adapting the format to Indian Cricket ( unlike the bollywood films which fail in on copying Hollywood ones) .The feeling you get of him is that of a gritty business man, he somehow reminds me of an Investment banker in wall street. May be because the pay cheques handed in IPL can only be compared to Wall Street Bonuses. He is in stark contrast to fluid linguistic Tharoor. If you look at it from a corporate perspective, he is a kind of a whistleblower , who came out in the open. Perhaps , he used his whistle blowing discretely with regard to Tharoor . There might be many more discrepancies , for which Modi might not have whistled, even overlooked it many times. With IT department digging up the dirt, he may face the same fate as Tharoor . Its an irony that the League which he created , might also be the the reason which could cause his downfall. And Finally if your wondering who the Dhoka was for, its for cricket crazy Indian public who seemed to have unabashed loyalty towards to the game of Cricket; But its for only one game only , for which there is exploitation and problem starts.
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