Kolkata Knight Riders hit by racism row

Kolkata Knight Riders cannot win. This seems to be the statement which is the talk of the town in the cultural capital of India. If the multiple captain theory, more than needed media promotion and the fake IPL player blog wasn’t enough now we have the worst thing imaginable in sports RACIAL ABUSE. All this is taking a toll on the performance of the team and the loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore just about an hour ago has proved that this team has lost the self belief of that they can win a match.

As far as the racial abuse case is concerned it is nothing new to the sport. Any sub-continent player of the yesteryears will tell you what they faced it on the ground regularly. Let us not talk about the apartheid as it is a completely different issue. In the recent years racism has considerable reduced due to ICC’s strict code of conduct. Also because of the fact that the focus of the game shifted to sub-continent from its colonial master’s country. The players from the sub-continent started giving it back in the last two decades or so.

The revelations by former Indian cricketer Ajay Jadeja about Indian players being racially abused have shocked many. It is not that people weren’t aware of black-white divide in the team but racism was too much for the people of Indian let alone Kolkata to digest. When an Indian player of international repute (most likely Ajit Agarkar) is being racially abused by the coach and the supporting staff what will be the state of the uncapped Bengal players in the team.

The thing most hurting is that this is happening in what is called as the INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE. Just because the league has moved out of India have the white man got their chance to racially abuse us? How can some coach or support staff who is employed by an Indian racially abuse an Indian or a person from any other origin for the matter? May be the dropping of Kolkata as the prefix gave the coach and the support staff the feeling the Knight Riders is something out of a white man’s book.

It is surprising that there has been no strong reaction from the BCCI as well as the IPL governing body on the issue. Have they forgotten that this tournament’s main aim should be to improve the quality of Indian cricket. Are they so involved in money making and branding that they will let such issues slip under the carpet? Should Indian cricketers silently take the racial abuse just because it comes from a white man?

In this entire episode where is Mr. Shahrukh Khan? He was busy selling everything about KKR before the league but when his team started loosing he completely abandoned them. Is this what an owner should have done when his team needed him the most? The KKR camp is just waiting for the tournament (read nightmare) to get over so that they could get back home. It will need a huge overhaul and some tough calls to make sure that the team does not humiliate itself in next year’s tournament too. The Knights seem to have even forgotten how to play for pride at the moment.

Has the Left Fort been shaken in West Bengal?

West Bengal was one state in India which was always painted red. Many people would have learnt to live with the idea that Left Front couple not be defeated in the Bengali heartland. But for the first time since the polls post Indira Gandhi's death in 1984 Left seems to be on shaky ground in its own bastion. Analyst believe the Trinamool Congress and Congress alliance might cause a dent in the Left stronghold.

The politics in West Bengal has mostly been isolated from the rest of the country. The Babri Masjid demolition or the politics or 'Mandal and Kamandal' hardly made any impact of the poll results here. West Bengal seemed to have been insulated from liberalization, saffron wave of the 90s, the castist politics or recent India Shining campaign. It was all about a political ideology preached by the Left which worked in what was once India's most prosperous state.

The question in West Bengal was never who but it was by how much? People knew who was on road to Delhi, the unknown factor was number of votes. Most political parties over the years actually fought for the second place in West Bengal. But for the first time political pundits seem to be interested in the outcome of the polls here as it is unpredictable. For the first time a non-Left coalition seems to be sniffing victory in a substantial number of seats.

In the last assembly election out of the 294 seats the Left Front won 227 while the Congress and TMC managed 51 seats. In the last Lok Sabha elections LF bagged 35 out of the 42 seats. But a lot of water has flown down the Hoogly since then and a lot has changed. The urban rural divide became more evident during the Tata Nano crisis. The Left Front which had championed the cause of the poor farmers suddenly turned Land Grabbers from Land Reformers.

The high percentage of voter turn out and violence may signal a change wave going on around in West Bengal. The rural voters who were once the die hard supporters of the Left Front suddenly seems to have lost trust in the party which had done a lot for them in the grassroot level. The negligible suicide rate among farmers in West Bengal is a result of such reforms in the state. But the farmers now see the LF turning a back on them after Singur and Nandigram.

It will be amateurish for anybody to write off the Left Front in West Bengal but the Left leaders surely are having sleepless nights this time around. The May 16 results will show if truly the 'Didi Factor' worked in the Red State. For the Left Front it remains to be seen if Singur and Nandigram becomes their Waterloo.

Nano finally ignites its engines

After lots of hurdles and roadblocks both corporate and political the Tata Nano finally has pushed the fuel into the ignition cylinder. The world's cheapest car and one of modern India's engineering marvel will finally be seen on the roads. Had it not been for some insane politics the car popularly rechristened as the 'Lakhtakia' would have been five months old now. But as they say “better late than never”.

Tata Nano was the talk of the town during the 79th Geneva Motor Show. It attracted more people than the Bentleys, the Audis, the Rolls Royaces could. The giants had to bow in front of the cheapest car from a so called 'Third World Country.' Many automobile enthusiasts have compared it to Henry Ford's legendary Model T which had revolutionised America.

Tata Nano has to be hailed as the greatest engineering marvel to have come out of India since its independence. Coming from the most respected corporate house in India it is a perfect example of 'extreme engineering.' It may not surprise many that Tata Motors has filed in as many as 17 patents for the different components which had to be custom made for the Nano.

The concept was thought to be impossible by most automotive giants around the world. Many had raised doubts on the feasibility of the project. Corporates rivals even went on to ridicule the project saying the Tatas will add an extra wheel to an auto-rickshaw and call it a car. Tatas have silenced all of them and the same people who had ridiculed Ratan Tata and his men are working on their own version of the 'People's Car'. Bajaj Auto has even displayed its prototype in the Delhi Auto Expo.

If corporate rivalry was not enough there was some insane politics played out against the project under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. Her prolonged agitation made sure Tata Nano had to exit Singur in West Bengal and find a new home in Sanand, Gujarat. The meant launch date had to be postponed by five months and Tata group incurred loses upto Rs. 1500 Crores.

In spite of the loses the Tatas stuck to their price of one lakh and once again proved why do Indians still swear by the name of Tata. In the end Ratan Tata and his men have stood against time and delivered what they had promised. March 23, 2009 will go down as a historic date not only in India's automotive history but in the automotive history of the world.

Also Read.....
The Sleeping Race

Barack Obama's Bengal Adventure

Should Dada do political Dadagiri?

Kolkata gets country's first elevated rail transit system

Now reading this headline many people might jump of this seat in disbelief. Kolkata is it? The capital of West Bengal? Isn't it the same state which chased away the Tatas? A Rs 60 billion project in Kolkata is the Government nuts? How is it that a dying city like Kolkata which already has the country's oldest metro can get an elevated rail transit system?

The reason is simple Kolkata needs a mass public transport system and secondly Kolkata can sustain a elevated light rail transit system. It may surprise many people across the country but Kolkata had got its Metro in the days of what we call as the 'Licence Raj' and the first trains began running in the year 1984 much before the today's IT, BT and MBA kids had learned to speak.

The hurdle for a such a project in any other state in India will lie outside it but in West Bengal it is within. There is a huge amount of insensitivity among a certain sect of politicians who want to make political gains at the cost of the State's development. Opportunistic politics is currently ruling over developmental politics the policies and program of such parties

The Singur fiasco was a shameful example how politics prevented a respected corporate like Tata rolling out its People's car from the state. What a day it would have been for the state which is starved of industrialisation. But for one party and its leadership the state lost a golden opportunity to re-establish its place among the developed states and regain its past glory.

As I type my blog an insane opposition in West Bengal may be already planning its next course of agitation to halt this project for the sake of fame and media coverage. The may already have the roadmap of the places where tyres will be burnt and buses will be torched. Hopefully this time around some sense prevails among such leaders. The state which has a visionary Chief Minister just needs people to stand behind him.