The story of a prosperous family

This is the story of a man who started his life in the green meadows of England sowing seeds of sport, spirit and class. As his crop grew popular, he went to different parts of the world to introduce the crop and see how it grows. Let us see its growth in different regions carefully.

First when it was introduced in the Australian outback, the seeds of sport and class grew well and had a bumper crop of class for almost 20 years from 1928 to 1948, thanks to a great worker from there.

Then the man took it to the Indian Subcontinent and the Carribean. The crop's growth in the subcontinent was curious. Once in a while there was a good crop but it couldn't feed the whole bunch. In the Carribean a different breed of the crop grew. Though one can't say that the species of Class was a regular crop here, sport and spirit grew in abundance with a cross breed of ruthlessness. It was the 1970s.

The Australians weren't far behind in understanding the advantages of this crossbreeding and soon used it to maximum effectiveness. In the mean time the old man gave birth to a son, whom the neighbors liked very much and everybody started playing with him. But never was the Old man forgotten. He was always respected wherever he went. Then in the Sub-continent suddenly there was bumper crop in India. In the late 1970s and 1980s both father and son grew in strength and stature through out the world finding excellent workers to work for them.

The advent of 1990s saw the family prosper with some of the best servants of the world to come and work in their fields. The Australian workers tried to cross breed more of ruthlessness to the crop and reaped rich well into the first decade of the new millenium. Meanwhile, the Subcontinental fields saw bumper harvest year after year thanks to some meticulous and hard workers.

At the start of the new millenium the old man became a grand father with a grandson being born in the family. The grandson was playful, enjoyable and much more attractive. In the mean time the Indian station of the old man grew richer and richer and the old man was pleased to see it. The grandchild was given a royal reception in 2008 and it grew with the attention of all the local servants. Slowly the servants started serving the father and the new child and forgot the importance of the old grandfather. As some of the best servants from Australian household retired the father was better served by the Sub-continent or to be precise India.

Came 2011. The father gave the Indian servants a prize for their hard work. But the little 4 year old child still attracted the servants. Instead of taking day off and serve the grand father from next day, the servants played with the child continuously. Then when they got tired, the grand father was completely forgotten. The new servants who grew up with the child, found it difficult to match the discipline and patience of the grand father. And so today on 13th Aug 2011, the grand father left India for his home in England.

The grandfather is Test cricket, the father ODI cricket and the 4 year old child T20(to be precise IPL)

Hope the family comes back to India soon....

Education to become a farmer

"India's economic growth is 8% this fiscal", " The IT industry is really the growth engine of our economy", "Manufacturing sector contributes to the bulk of employment and it will remain our priority", " We want to be the factory of the world". These are some of the common headlines apart from scams and bomb blasts (though I don't find the difference between the two seriously) one sees these days. When I go to a village and ask a farmer what is your son going to do, " My son will become an engineer. When he finishes +2, I will sell this land for his studies" is the reply. From his point of view it is the best way of life. According to them the logical conclusion of education is becoming an engineer or doctor and to earn more money.

But in the process everybody forgets the basic necessity of mankind. Food. I am proud to say that India is an agrarian economy. But India is slowly losing this tag. I see land conversion on around country side. Recently there was a protest in Ooty calling for setting up an IT Park in Nilgiris district. Won't you guys leave even that place. What are we going to do if all land is used up for manufacturing and service sector and nothing for agriculture? So here is a thought that I feel will take care of food security as well as ensure literacy and improve standard of living in the country side of India.

An agricultural university with practical curriculum and ample future. Today's agricultural universities mostly do research in genetic modification, biotech etc but never focus on practical issues faced by farmers. A two year degree course in agriculture for future farmers. Here is the curriculum. A course in fruit sciences and vegetable sciences. Another course in crop sciences. Then a course on soil sciences and geology. These are the basic courses that is needed by all. Apart from these a course on environmental sciences is important in today's context.

Other subjects that are important include irrigation methods. People don't understand and practice modern irrigation methods which is very important. A course on modern farming practices and machineries is also very important. A course on fertilizers would do a world of good to them. There maybe electives in horticulture farming, spice and plantation crops which can be chosen by the students according to the farmland they own. Last and most important, a course on marketing which is a necessity to any farmer. The last semester can be given as a project work that can be used to design new machines and mechanisms or farming methodologies from their learned concepts and past experiences. A stipend amount can be given to the student during the course completion phase.Though there are courses in some of these subjects, it is not for farmers. It is only for researchers, microbiologists and biotech engineers.

Instead of 'Vayalum Vaazhvum' and 'Kisaan ghar' programmes, if these programmes are introduced, It would reach the farmers better and as well as there is a higher probability of people retaining their agricultural lands for farming and lead to rural growth. Why do people come to city? In search of better opportunities and standard of living. If this could be brought to villages then the urban-rural divide will reduce as well as ensure food security and inclusive growth.

The story of the great Indian T2O game

The format is considered the shortest. The event is considered the most flamboyant of all. The brand is considered the costliest of all sporting events. It has achieved in recognizing cricketing talent. Not for India, but for outsiders. The tournament that gave recognition to the talent of Sohail Tanvir, Shaun Marsh, Albie Morkel etc, the tournament that brought back to form players like Dilshan, Kevin Pietersen, the tournament that gave a new lease of life to Gillie, Warnie, Haydos etc, failed miserably in finding local talent. One must remember that the 1st T20 World Cup was won before the advent of IPL.

So what has IPL done to Indian cricket? The already rich cricket board became richer. People from different regions got to see atleast one international level event being hosted by a city nearby for a month.

When Modi was given the task of starting a desi T20 league that could throw away the slowly establishing ICL, his main aim was reach and money and not cricket. So he went the same way as the most popular sporting league event in the world. The English Premier League(EPL). But one must understand that though EPL is the most popular league the national team has won only one World Cup in the long history. That doesn't matter to football fans. National level matches happen occasionally, either the World Cup or Qualifiers or the Euro Cup. Fans have seen loads of club football and are devoted to it much more than to national football. They've grown up enjoying these.

But that is not the case in cricket. For ages we have seen only national and international tournaments at that level and never club tournaments. Also had every team been under the respective state associations, cricket would have taken centre stage and not money. But Modiism isn't about that. Its about extravagance, glamour, money and entertainmant rather than cricket. In what was supposed to be the pitch that should be under spot light, the dugouts and parties became the centre piece and the cricketing part just an add-on but a necessary one. Money ruled the roost.

Also cricket has other aspects of it that needs to be looked into. For example, in the sub continent the pitches will be flat, dusty and the grounds rather small. So the kind of cricket that one plays here is different from the one that he plays Down Under or the Carribean. In a format that is already a batsman's heaven, flat and dusty pitches add more voes to the bowlers. They fail to bring out the best possible talent in the circuit as a batsman is not tested fully and a bowler is let down by the wicket. For example, the Chennai pitch for the CSK-RR match this season was a belter. More than 400 runs scored on a day may be good for entertainment but not for the sport. So there is no point complaining about the T20 debacle.

Including 4 foreign players in a team should be instrumental in mentoring the young players in the team. But from all the three editions of IPL it is clear that the foreign players have been largely responsible for a team's victory.

Case in point is M.Vijay. The day before he had a 400 run opening stand with Abhinav mukund in a Ranji league match. The next day he opened batting for India along with Sehwag against Australia and scored a brisk 40 and 33. This was in India. An year later he scored an audacious 127 against RR that followed another match winning 79 against RCB in IPL-3. But apart from the 48 against Afghanistan, he was struggling in all other matches in the carribean. Definitely his test performances show that he is of international material but he hasn't been exposed to international conditions. This is a very important element.

We have a flamboyant domestic extravaganza that has cricket as a part of it. We don't have proper domestic T20 league like KFC T20 league in Australia. Only when cricket takes centre stage, can we blame that inspite of IPL our players sucked.