Police Action

Scene 1 –

There are crowds of about 20,000 packed in streets, protesting, screaming and shouting.

The police are about 1000 odd.

The police are totally out numbered and cornered.

A push leads to the death of an innocent.

The IPCC has suspended the officer and found faults in the way police handled the situation.

 

Scene 2:

There is 1 man sitting in a train going about with his business like every other morning on a train.

There are 6 police officers surrounding him.

The man is out numbered and cornered.

He is shot 6 times at point blank range in the name of terrorism. Turns out he is an innocent man with no links to terrorism.

Neither the police officer nor the IPCC or the British Courts find anything wrong and no action is taken (as far as I know).

 

The end...

 

Dinesh Kartik - Party Pooper?

In the 2 one-days that Kartik played against Sri Lanka when Dhoni was banned here is a text of the commentary (taken from cricinfo):

 

1)       24^th Dec 2009, India vs. Sri Lanka at Eden Gardens

This match made history of sorts as no tickets were sold!!! Yes, you can have empty stadiums in India for a cricket match.

 

Anyway, back to the topic, so far Kartik has been playing run a ball while Gambhir has been doing the entire run making to get India close to victory. Kartik hits his first four when not only is India in a comfortable position to win (7 runs in 14 balls, 7 wickets in hand) but more importantly Gambhir is 4 short of a milestone – 150. Why does Kartik have to go for a boundary when he can let Gambhir take the strike and get his 150 rather comfortably and perhaps go beyond 150 to get his highest score in ODI’s?

 

Luckily for Gambhir he did hit a 4 as India’s winning runs and also his 150 although he could not score more than his highest ODI score (of 150).

 

Just three to win it. A four will also get Gambhit to 150.
End of over 48 (9 runs) India 313/3 (3 runs required from 12 balls, RR: 6.52, RRR: 1.50) KD Karthik    19* (22b 1x4)      RAS Lakmal    10-0-55-2 G Gambhir    146* (136b 13x4)      SL Malinga    9-0-71-0
47.6	Lakmal to Karthik, no run, another bouncer down the stumps, getting him to crouch low
47.5	Lakmal to Karthik, FOUR, on the full, driven on the rise to extra cover where Malinga tries to stop the ball with his feet but makes a total mess of it
47.4	Lakmal to Gambhir, 1 run, another short ball, to which Gambhir arches his back and uppercuts it down on the bounce to third man
47.3	Lakmal to Karthik, 1 run, straighter ball on middle and off, punched down to mid-on
47.2	Lakmal to Karthik, no run, another slow bouncer down the stumps and he ducks under it
47.1	Lakmal to Gambhir, 3 runs, pokes at one on a length outside off and gets an inside edge past leg stump

 

2)       21^st December, 2009, India vs. Sri Lanka, 3^rd ODI at Cuttack.

 

In this situation again the man is scoring about a run a ball and Tendulkar on the other end is doing the entire run making. Again, India is in a very comfortable situation and victory is guaranteed. Kartik hits a six when Tendulkar was on 91 and India needed 13 runs to win with 7 wickets in hand and 8 overs remaining. In fact in the previous over he had hit a 4. With the six India needed only 7 to win which meant Tendulkar would most likely miss an ODI century.

 

41.5	Randiv to Karthik, SIX, maximum! Dances out, collects on the full, and dumps it over long-on
41.6	Randiv to Karthik, no run, pitches outside leg and he turns it to midwicket
End of over 42 (7 runs) India 233/3 (7 runs required from 48 balls, RR: 5.54, RRR: 0.87) KD Karthik    32* (30b 4x4 1x6)      S Randiv    8-1-33-1 SR Tendulkar    91* (102b 12x4)      SL Malinga    9-1-46-0
Seven to win. Two fours for Tendulkar?

 

What is the point of hitting a six when your batting has been lacklustre throughout and the person on the other end is closing on a milestone?

 

Why would someone do that?

 

 

Jharkhand (A state in India) Election Results

Former minister Enos Ekka of the Jharkhand Party-Ekka defeated BJP’s Mahendra Bhagat by over 7,000 votes in Kolibera. Ekka is currently in jail in a disproportionate assets case.

Bangers (Sausage) and Mash - where UK meets Bihar

 

Students - Most Effective Tool to Influence Politics?

 

UWMBCA, KTGD, HMRKB, DPMD, HAPW - what is the connection?

UWMBCA Welegedara

KTGD Prasad

HMRKB Herath

DPMD Jayawardene

HAPW Jayavardene

 

Five of the playing 11 in the Sri Lankan cricket team touring India for the 3-match test series in Nov 2009.

Nobel Prize - Does it reward intent or deed?

 

1st World Country, 3rd World Government - NHS

Sometimes you get surprised that a country like UK should have practices that you get to see in 3rd world countries. In fact it is worse, because in 3rd world countries jumping queues, paying bribes and other tactics works whereas in UK, under the pretext of being a 1st world nation these things are not possible. As a result you end up in a situation that neither works in the 1st world nor the 3rd world.

National Health Service
At a certain GP Practice in London, if you go in at 8:30AM for an emergency appointment, the response is your appointment is at 12 come back then. I think someone needs to explain to them that an emergency means immediate attention, and if you are telling someone to come back 3 hours later for an emergency appointment it defeats the meaning of the word. In fact to get any appointment takes forever and once you get an appointment if you want to get an expert opinion it takes 3 appointments with the GP before they can make sure it requires expert opinion and refer you to one. By then it is almost 2 months and for all that you know your ailment has cured itself or gotten worse.
What would happen in the 3rd world is:

If you are getting delayed at one hospital you can go to the other.

You or someone you know would know someone (and this can go on and one) who would know someone influential to help you get straight to the doctor in case of an emergency and promised the best treatment.

If you think you have to go to a specialist you don’t go to a GP, you go straight to a specialist, who the influential person above will arrange so that you don’t have to wait and utmost care will be given to your treatment.

1st World Country, 3rd World Government - Home Office

Sometimes you get surprised that a country like UK should  have practices that you get to see in 3^rd world countries. In fact it is worse, because in 3^rd world countries jumping queues, paying bribes and other tactics works whereas in UK, under the pretext of being a 1^st world nation these things are not possible. As a result you end up in a situation that neither works in 1^st world nor the 3^rd world.
The Home Office
If you are trying to get your Indefinite Leave to Remain visa or Permanent Residency then the only way you could get this is by calling the home office at sharp 9AM. One should consider themselves lucky if they get through in the 10^th call. They take calls for appointments for 6 weeks in advance and it is inevitable that they will tell you that it is booked out. Which means you keep calling everyday until one day they tell you an appointment is available. Now here are the 3^rd world practices in the Home Office of 1^st country:

There is no call waiting facility, you will get a message that everyone is busy so we have to call back

If they cannot take booking for 6 weeks from the day you call the only other option is to call them back

There is no way to make a booking over the internet

There is no way you can go straight to the office and get the work done

There is no way you can pay someone a bribe and get the work done

The only other alternative to making numerous calls everyday with the hope you will get an appointment is to send them the application with the passport and expect to get it back anywhere between 4 to 14 weeks!!!

Peter Roebuck on the Fab 5 of Indian Team

"If Anil Kumble was the colossus, Sachin Tendulkar the champion, Rahul Dravid the craftsman, VVS Laxman the sorcerer, then Ganguly was the inspiration."

As published in cricinfo in an article by Peter Roebuck on the eve of Saurav Ganguly's last test match of his career at Nagpur against the Aussies.

HT: Cricinfo and Peter Roebuck

Jeev Milkha Singh at the US Masters

What was Jeev Milkha Singh’s target at the US Open:

 

“to get par”

 

It is a PJ which is more suitable for another blog Punny Journalist and only for those who understand Hindi for the pun is in the Hindi meaning of the word “par”.

Slogan for Varun Gandhi

Varun Gandhi is debuting his political life in India and in style. Varun is from the Nehru-Gandhi political family; he is the son of Sanjay Gandhi/Maneka Gandhi, grandson of Indira Gandhi and nephew of Sonia Gandhi.

 

Varun belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the slogan raised by Bharatiya Janata Party workers for Varun caught my attention:

 

“Yeh Varun Nahi yeh aandhi hai, yeh doosra Sanjay Gandhi hai”

 

Varun in Hindi/Sanskrit means “Lord of the Seas/Waters” and Aandhi means – “dust storm”.

 

So when translated (and not transliterated) it means, “he is not the lord of the seas but he is a storm, he is the second Sanjay Gandhi”.

 

If you know about Sanjay Gandhi, you will know the significance of calling him “the second Sanjay Gandhi” as Sanjay Gandhi himself used to cause a lot of storms when he was alive.

 

Indian elections in general have some interesting slogans, of which I should compile another list, but this one caught my eye.

 

HT: Wikipedia and BJP official website

More on Himesh Reshmayya

You can see how much I like him but this is also an excellent piece and I couldn't help from putting it here. And guess what, this also comes from MSN who have given the award for the "Joker of the Year 2008" to Himesh. Here is an excerpt from their website on why he deserved this title:

 

"As is his habit, Himesh mistook facial contortions for Method Acting, and nasal acrobatics for singing! The result: The junta went into laugh riots every time he crooned "Nazron mein teri kashish ka aalam...Dil mein hai armanon ki sargam!!""

 

HT: MSN

Himesh Reshammiya

An excellent description of Himesh Reshammiya by Deepa Gahlot of MSN India Entertainment:

 

"Himesh Reshammiya is this generation's Jeetendra, can't act, wears bizarre clothes, but somehow appeals to the tapori class, as well as to the inverse snobbery of people who normally ought to have better sense. His success cannot be analysed or explained, he possibly has such a following of young men, because he is their wish-fulfilment fantasy-- an outsider without a star father, without Hrithik Roshan's deadly looks, Shah Rukh Khan's talent, Aamir Khan's intelligence or Salman Khan's body—if he can make it, anyone can."

 

HT: MSN India Entertainment

Do Bollywood movies epitomise India or are they chick flicks?