18th April

IPL 2.0

The article talks about the second version of IPL T20 that would kick off at Cape Town today and is poised for a success around the entire cricketing world.

While stars from Lalit Modi to Shahrukh Khan and Shane Warne to John Buchanan would share the stage on the streets of Cape Town, the missing entity would be Saurav Ganguly who has been replaced by Brandon McCullum as captain of KKR. For the next 36 days, the entire cricketing world would be glued to the tournament, anybody likes it or not. Following the security concerns post-Lahore attack, the tournament was shifted to South Africa. But this can in fact prove a blessing if the League proves to be a big hit outside the continent. This would help to0 disprove the theory of home ground crowd behind IPL’s success. The 7.5 minutes break between each 10 overs would help BCCI earn more revenue from advertisers and invest that money into cricket.

Finally, it doesn’t matter of Bollywood stars pout and preen; or Dada struggle one more time to another Australian bete noire. The show must go on!!!

Kashmir, Texas

The article tries to draw parallel between the cases of Kashmir and Texas wherein some of the locals are demanding to secede from their respective nations i.e. India and US. However, it also points out the difference in the legitimacy of the demands.

Texans are feeling that the Federal government is charging too high taxes from the state which resulted in nationwide protest in the form of Tea parties and throwing tea bags into the White House lawns resembling to the Boston Tea Party of 1773. However, the colonists who opposed taxes in 1773 weren’t allowed any representatives, but that logic is not true for today. Moreover the protest is more of a weapon for the Rights to take on the President. Although the President is accused of being socialist and communist, it is the duty of him to uphold socialism, at least with reference to the Indian Constitution. Moreover, protestors are overlooking the fact that due to economic crisis there are several job losses and thus there is a need for the government to bail them out which is not possible without money. Back home, even some Kashmiris are thinking to secede from India. However, the problem here is of different nature. Texans think that they are paying too much tax to the federal government while Indians think that huge proportion of their taxes go to Kashmir to keep it with Indian Union. 

Islamabad has always tried to get the US intervention in the Kashmir issue in order to capture it but India has hardly ever made it successful. And now even if Uncle Sam intervenes, India can safely put them off by quoting the Texas example.