Cricket - The Gentleman's Game No More

The most recent allegations of spot fixing (certain aspects of the game are fixed rather then the game itself) against three cricketers from Pakistan have just scratched the surface of what many had suspected. Big money changes hands every-time a bowl is bowled or a run is scored.

There was a time not too long ago, when cricket was played for the love of the game and money and fame were an afterthought. But now it feels like the opposite is true. Fame and fortune are all that matter.

Harsha Bhogle captures this very essence in his article for cricinfo. He writes

India's new generation of cricketers is not just wealthy beyond imagination, they seem to have acquired it without a lot to show for it. I do not know if these young men are looking 10 years into the future, acquiring a work ethic that their solidly brought-up seniors possessed. They seem satiated, two years at the top seems to drain them; the BMW seems more alluring than the sustained effort of a 10-year career. For those that don't want a place in history, the low-hanging fruit can come from many sources.

The End of Cricket as we know it

The growing fangs of global terror have not even spared the gentleman's game. The brazen day light attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan is a reminder that when it comes to terrorists, nobody is immune. Lucky for the cricketers and for us that all of them survived with minor physical injuries. They can still continue to work their magic on the field. But the face of cricket in the subcontinent, where it is second only to religion, has taken a beating.

In lamenting about how the attack on Sri Lankan cricketers will change how cricket is viewed on the sub-continent, Harsha Bhogle writes:

Increasingly cricket grounds will be heavily guarded, cricketers will play in what look like garrisons; it will take longer to get into a T20 game than actually watch it. Little children will no longer eye the wax paper packet in which their mother has packed the best sandwiches in the world. People might stay in drawing rooms, not only because they are more comfortable, but because they are safer. Increasingly cricket will be limited to what the camera shows and what the commentator says. If they can fight their way through all the advertising! I fear cricket watching will become clinical rather than innocent.

Read the complete article" The game we love

Israel and the Gaza Offensive - Should India Emulate and Attack Pakistan?

Israel has launched an all out attack against the Hamas over what it says is the continued attack by Hamas on southern Israel. Over the last few days since this offensive started, I have heard from friends who are trying to compare Israels situation with that of India, how India needs to emulate Israel and attack Pakistan for the repeated terrorists attacks on India and the recent Mumbai blasts in particular.

Though I would like to see Pakistan brought to the books for all its atrocities, I feel that attacking Pakistan would be a wrong move on the part of India. There are a couple of reasons for that.

First of all Israel has a lot of support from the United States. AIPAC, the pro Israel lobby in America is very powerful and any politician in the US who needs to be elected to an office of any worth must have have support from this lobby. Though India has come to be recognized as a burgeoning democracy and economy by the United States, it does not enjoy the kind of support that Israel does.

Second, Israel is the solo nuclear power in the region. But India and Pakistan are both nuclear armed neighbors. Any conflict between these two has the potential to escalate into a full blown nuclear conflict.

Third, in the unlikely scenario of a war, the refugee and humanitarian crisis that would unfold would be of unprecedented proportions. I do not think neither India has the resources nor the expertise to tackle this situation.

Fourth, a war would likely make Pakistan pull all of its troops from the western border with Afghanistan, where Pakistani army is involved in a battle to defeat the Taliban.

All this does not mean that India should just forget about the Mumbai blasts and keep to itself. It is in India's interest to see that Pakistan does not slip into another terrorist state like Afghanistan. So the correct course of action on India's part is to work with the United States and the new Obama administration to apply diplomatic, economic and political pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the terror outfits on its land. A war with Pakistan at this juncture would prove both costly and counter productive from India's point of view

Excellent Article on Mumbai Terror Attacks

An excellent article on the Mumbai terror attacks by Arundhati Roy published in the Guardian newspaper.
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The Mumbai attacks have been dubbed 'India's 9/11', and there are calls for a 9/11-style response, including an attack on Pakistan. Instead, the country must fight terrorism with justice, or face civil war
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Also read another excellent article by Priyamvada Gopal, again, published in the Guardian newspaper.
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We must not let '9/11' become a horrific status symbol signalling arrival into the fraternity of wounded superpowers
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What Should Pakistan's People Do?

In response to the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Tom Friedman, in his recent op-ed for the NY Timescalls on all of Pakistan's people to stand up and say enough is enough on terrorism.
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Sure, better intelligence is important. And, yes, better SWAT teams are critical to defeating the perpetrators quickly before they can do much damage. But at the end of the day, terrorists often are just acting on what they sense the majority really wants but doesn’t dare do or say. That is why the most powerful deterrent to their behavior is when the community as a whole says: “No more. What you have done in murdering defenseless men, women and children has brought shame on us and on you.”

Why should Pakistanis do that? Because you can’t have a healthy society that tolerates in any way its own sons going into a modern city, anywhere, and just murdering everyone in sight — including some 40 other Muslims — in a suicide-murder operation, without even bothering to leave a note. Because the act was their note, and destroying just to destroy was their goal. If you do that with enemies abroad, you will do that with enemies at home and destroy your own society in the process.
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Pakistan's New Political Crisis

The assissination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has pushed Pakistan into further political turmoil. And the violence that ensued after here death only points to how volatile the situaion has become in this nuclear armed country. The assisination has also left the Bush administration in a bind as it had been trying to push through the democratic process with Benazir Bhutto being the de-factor US backed candidate. Her assisination presents the administration wih very limited options to try and salvage its efforts to put Pakistan on a democratic process. The current situation also calls into question the safety of the nuclear arsenal which Pakistan possesses.