Sometimes

It is quite difficult to undertsand some aspects of how to handle life. You expect these things to not bother you. In fact, believe that they should not. Yet you end up affected. I dont know if the issue is with the fact that you are like all of "them"  or if you did not get what you deserve. Well, life will only throw more such instances. Probably it will help me figure it out!

a nice piece

I missed earlier here by anantha nageswaran

It is a nation that has no pride in the past, does not identify priorities for the present and hence no sense of purpose about the future. It is a nation with no sense of history. Such a nation may still achieve spurts of economic growth, but it is unlikely to realize its potential ever.

The obsessive pursuit of instant gratification has resulted in the flight of decency, decorum, discipline and dignity from India’s public space. Anything that is scarce becomes more valuable. Therefore, there will be a natural scramble to possess them. Those who possess and display scarce commodities are rich. But not in India. These Ds are in short supply not because they are increasingly in demand, but because Indians have become incapable of generating them.

I desperately hope he is wrong!

I always thought

Iain O'Brien was a jolly sort, but when you read this piece you realize its all on the exterior.

All I wanted to do was be myself. I wanted to be comfortable in my own skin. But, in these situations, outside of my hotel room, I didn't know who I was. Everything I did was a bluff. All the confidence I showed was faked. Fake it until you make it. The problem with this though is that you're never comfortable. You spend so much time and energy pretending that it wears you down.

Physically, sport is tough. Mentally, it's harder. It's hard being me, it really is - living with my ego and the doubts it brings.

Can you argue with this

The far more telling commentary on the government’s attitude towards corruption is the readiness with which it has initiated criminal action or investigations against those who have spoken out against corruption, and has been dragging its feet when it comes to launching investigations where, as in the coal block allocation scandal, a prima facie case of monumental corruption  exists.

If that doesn’t amount to peeing on the Constitution, I don’t know what is…

Full piece here; If I write anything more they might say I am committing sedition too!

The Conventions

There are some things within the American system that I really like. you have the Conventions. You offer the contenders a 3 day chance ot make the case for why they should be leading the country. I think this is an amazing way to hear from and learn about the future leaders. Today, I witnessed one of the greatest polictical speeches I have seen. I heard of Bill Clinton's pedigree; but never watched him speak live. Man, i have never seen somebody deliver so many facts on such complex issues so effortlessly. I can see why people loved him so much when he was in his pomp. But the way he addressed all the lies from Romnney and Ryan campaign was quite cool. Also, loved some of the statements he made on the number of jobs generated during democrat versus republican presidencies! Interesting to know that (hopefully they are true!).

Can't argue with Karthik on this point

 Everyone get a life please...If a batsman is out on a stroll inspite of being warned, does that count as being in the spirit of the game? 

Murali Kartik is not amused by reactions on his "mankading" to get rid of Somerset's Alex Barrow in the LV County Championship

Well, Manmohan Singh might

finally be caught in the UPA web; that is an irony!

The chronology of the allocation process tells its own story, and goes some way towards demolishing Manmohan Singh’s case that since his government was only abiding by the policy drawn up in 1993, the original sin lies elsewhere. Between 1993 and 2005, during which period, India was barely stirring itself out of the slow-growth orbit and demand for coal wasn’t as high (and China’s own demand for mineral resources from around the world had not yet become monstrous),  only 70 coal blocks were allocated. But between 2004 and 2009, with coal prices soaring  on increased demand, principally from within India and from China, the UPA 1 government went into overdrive, allocating 142 coal blocks.

More tellingly, a flurry of allocations was made around the time of the May 2009 elections. In more than a few cases, as has been established, they were not even companies that had a track record in the mining space. Clearly, the attempt was to corner the coal blocks before a transparent system of auctions was implemented, sit on the hoard that they had thus secured, and sell them at a later date when prices rose even higher. Mining the coal from the “wombs of Mother Earth” as P Chidambaram so colourfully put it, was farthest from their minds.