On the execution of Kasab

So finally Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist to participate in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, has been executed, after 4 years of interrogation and trial. The execution was managed quite smartly by the authorities -they never gave anyone an inkling about the upcoming execution, and reported it only after it was over. Thus they avoided unnecessary attention, hype and controversy all over the world. For once, Indian authorities showed that even they can be smart!

Until the unexpected news of his execution arrived, many Indians had been seething with rage for the past 4 years. They were upset that the government was not only delaying the execution, but actually spending astronomical amounts of money daily to ensure his security. And all this for a person who had caused the massacre of 50-odd people in CSTM station and around! Facebook was flooded with communities like "I want to kill Kasab" , and with posts ridiculing the government's handling of the issue. News portals regularly carried reports on how the government is spending money to ensure Kasab's security, without providing adequate aid to family members of the victims. After the execution, many of them are satisfied, though others would have been happier had the execution been public. They feel that "justice" has finally been done to India, and to the families of the victims. Reports are available that many of the victims families also do feel relieved after the execution. At the same time, some voices are singing different notes. They are anyway against death penalty/execution and feel that victory chants celebrating the execution are barbaric in nature.

I am neither a great supporter nor a strong opponent of execution in general. In Kasab's case, I feel there were significant practical reasons to execute him. The hype around him had made him important, albeit symbolically, to the terrorist organizations. There would always have been the danger of terrorists creating hostage crises, demanding his release. Besides, as already noted, having him in custody was causing a huge drain on the government exchequer. Possibly it was not worthwhile to run grave risks and spend huge sums of money on a ruthless murderer, and to get rid of him was a sensible decision.

On the other hand, I do not think this execution needs to be romanticized as "delivery of justice" and so on. It needs to be borne in mind that Kasab was actually a poor boy, sold to terrorist organizations, brain-washed by them and used as a pawn in an infernal plot. In that sense, Kasab is himself a victim of terrorism. He is a mass-murderer no doubt, and I do feel that he should be punished, but it should be understood that punishing  him, in whatever way, is not going to solve the greater problem of terrorism. Besides when Kasab and his comrades had come to attack Mumbai they were on a suicidal mission, and knew that they would probably die. His comrades all died in action, he died at the gallows, 4 years later. Whatever had to happen, just happened. There is no reason to talk about "justice" for this.

Finally, regarding the jubilant celebrations about his execution, I do not want to make any comment. I will not join such celebrations, and am tempted to say that I find them distasteful. But then my feelings on this matter are largely objective, since I was fortunate enough not to suffer any personal loss in the attack. I respect the feelings of those whose lives were scarred forever in that horrible incident.

I am proud to be a ?????

Mindset of a typical Indian:

I want to be proud of something. I want to boast, to brag, to show-off to someone, about something.

I want to show-off my exam grades, my new phone, my new job, my new house, my new car before my friends and neighbors.

If I have nothing of my own to show off , I will find someone successful in the locality, and will say "i am proud to belong to this locality" to those who don't belong to my locality

If there is no one successful in the locality, I will find someone successful in my city, and will say "i am proud to belong to this city" to those who don't belong to my city

If there is no one successful in the city, I will find someone successful in my linguistic group, and will say "i am proud to belong to be of this linguistic group" to those who don't belong to my linguistic group

If there is no one successful in the linguistic group, I will find someone successful in my country, and will say "i am proud to belong to this country" to those who don't belong to my country

In short, I must brag. I must show off. I must be proud.

:-/  :-/

"Need", "Greed" and "More"

At Kuvempu Circle, where the New B.E.L. Road meets the Outer Ring Road in Bangalore, there is signboard, on which is inscribed Mahatma Gandhi's quotation- "The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's Need, but not for everyone's Greed". I had heard this saying long back, but I was always sceptic- how exactly are "need" and "greed" defined for every man? Who will draw the line? Though I believe in living an austere life, I never attached much importance to this statement, as I considered it vague.

Nowadays, on Outer Ring Road, very close to the above-mentioned signboard (and elsewhere in Bangalore), I see some other signboards, which define "More". Their novel definition goes, "More is the ability to own a house at the age of 25". Or something similar. And below it is written, "You Deserve More". These are obviously advertisements by some real estate company.

The juxtaposition of these two signboards on the same road gives rise to some thoughts. Would Mahatma Gandhi consider owning a house at 25 as a need? I don't know what his scales were for differentiating between need and greed. But in the current world, overloaded with 7 billion people, a shocking fraction of them without proper shelter, to think of people owning a house at the age of 25 is a bit shocking. And that too in a country like India, which, despite claims of high economic growth, ranks below many sub-Saharan African countries in Human Development Index. Millions of people are forced to live in slums in and around big cities including Mumbai and Kolkata. And yet is the claim that "You" deserve "More"- owning a house below 25! Who, then, are "You"? Only the small fraction of people who have benifitted hugely from neo-liberalisation of India's economy? Must be, since profit-seeking corporations know that they can have more profit by further pampering the rich. They will never invest in housing for the poor- no profit there. "They" do not "deserve more".

Indians have never been able to think beyond increasing their status in society, of moving ahead of their neighbours. And nowadays, like never before, are more and more profit-seeking corporations to spoil them further. This is not only creating a completely disbalanced society, but also destroying the environment and ecology of the earth. Experts raise concerns that such unconstrained globalisation and capitalism has fundamentally altered the checks and balances of the earth. It is an urgent need of the hour to return to Mahatma Gandhi's statement, and ask ourselves, should "More" be classified as "Need", or a "Greed"? 

Japan-Jatri-r Diary (Diary of a Tourist to Japan)

A brief day-to-day account of my recent visit to Japan to attend ICASSP conference

Day 1: March 23

I had gone to bed by 10pm, but could not sleep at all till at least 12am. And then by 4:30 i got up by alarm. After getting dressed and eating the sandwich I had procured at night for breakfast, I finally set out around 6:25am. However, after walking beyond the library i suddenly felt- what if Green Gables insisted payment by card since the booking had been committed by card? After debating for a few minutes I decided to rush back to the hostel and get the card rather than take a chance. Some time was lost, and I had to hurry towards Mekhri Circle. On the road i found an auto but he demanded Rs50, so i continued walking. Immediately on reaching Mekhri i found a Bias, which was quite crowded and overloaded with luggage which almost blocked the middle door. I had to stand all the way in the crowd. IISc senior Vikas Garg boarded the same bus near Hebbal. He was also going to airport for a flight to delhi, albeit a different flight.

After reaching the airport I quickly finished the formalities. They never objected to either of my luggage, though it was not easy to remove and put back the waist-pouch for the security check. At the lounge, Harini was already waiting. Soon Prof Chandrasekhar Seelamanthula also arrived. We boarded the aircraft. Our seats were far apart. On board reasonably good food was provided, so that i did not need a full breakfast or a full lunch. After arriving at IGI Airport Sir left with his luggage for his sister's home. Me and Harini roamed about the airport for sometime, had a light lunch (i ate plane dosa and she ate idly) and then decided to go out if a cloakroom could be found and the heat was not that much outside. A good cloakroom was found, and it was actually very pleasant outside. After depositing my backpack and harini's bag that contained all her provisions (keeping all the necessary documents and even the posters with ourselves) we took a metro to Chandni Chowk and then walked to Red Fort (5mins from CC metro station). We spent some time in the fort and then returned. Every metro station and the Red Fort gate involved security checking and scanning of luggage, so the waistpouch was again a problem. We were back to the airport shortly before 6, collected the bags from the cloakroom and proceeded to the departure section. Although the notice boards said that only 1 piece of hand luggage is allowed, the person at the boarding pass counter said that i can keep both the bag and the poster-case. Harini would also carry her poster-case and her bag of provisions. After completing immigration formalities (we had to fill a form provided at boarding pass counter) and security checking, we moved to our gate. Harini started talking to her family on phone. I waited for her to finish but as she was taking a very long time i got my dinner- mcdonald's combo meal (1 veg burger and french fries). Later Harini got some Dosa and idly. Past 10PM, Neeraj and Prof Chandra finally arrived. We met Prof Umesh of IITM with his two students- Vikas and Raghavendra. Soon it was boarding time, and we boarded the aircraft. All of us had widely separated seats. This aircraft was much bigger than the domestic aircrafts, and had 3 columns each with 3 seats. I had an aisle seat in the middle column. Next to me on the sandwich seat was a Jap lady and on the other aisle seat was an European man who was travelling to Hong Kong. The plane departed and I slept, though was woken up for meal. I did not eat much because of the hour.

Day 2: March 24

At 3:30AM Indian time (7:00 AM Hong Kong time) Hong Kong was reached, where there was a long halt. Here we were given an embarkation card to be filled up and submitted to customs upon arrival at Osaka. After that we flew for another 4 hours to reach Osaka at 12 noon JST. Team India, now 7-strong, regrouped and went through the formalities. After that IIT Madras left for their hotel in a taxi which they had booked beforehand. We decided to take the Haruka Express to Kyoto. Neeraj and me drew 20K JPY each using Yatra Cards, and bought the train tickets from vending machines using the 10K JPY notes, with some help from the station master. Outside the airport it was very cold due to the sea breeze, and we put on jackets and gloves. After reaching the station we tried to call home from a telephone booth using a calling card (1000JPY) which succeeded after some 20 efforts (initially we could understand what prefixes to use, and even when we figured it out the call was getting dropped again and again.) Finally the train arrived and we boarded. It was a airconditioned 6-coach train. Initially we did not get a seat and stood near the vestibule of our coach. A TTE came and stamped the tickets. The train crossed a sea bridge and entered the main land. The train travelled at speeds like the better trains in India (superfast but not Rajdhani/Shatabdi) and reached Kyoto by covering 100Km in 75 minutes with two brief halts (Tennoji and Shin-Osaka). On reaching Kyoto me, Neeraj and Sir ate Potato and Pumpkin chops (Sir also ate a Pork chop :-P) at a shop in the station while Harini stood outside as she could not bear the strong smell of fish in the shop. Then we took two taxies- Sir went to his hotel in one and the 3 of us boarded the other. The taxi driver could not speak english, but read the address of the hotel from the booking.com receipt which we had and reached close to the place. I knew the hotel was on the main road (from Google Map) but he entered a network of lanes and soon got confused. He got down several times and asked people, each of whom opened some GPS device and gave some directions by making very articulate gestures with their hands. The language problem resulted in comic situations. Finally the hotel was found. But quite remarkably, the taxi driver turned off the meter when he was searching for the place. Neeraj payed the bill.

On reaching the hotel one lady received us and put us into two adjacent rooms on the ground floor. The corridor was very narrow and doors strange-looking, giving the impression of a jail. But the room was quite decent. It had a sliding door, and so we partitioned our room- one for Neeraj and one for myself. Harini took the other room. Our room had wired internet facility, two beds, a TV (only japanese), room heating, electric kettle, gas, washbasisn, a toilet and a bathroom fitted with a small bathtub, a tap and a telephone shower. One key was given which Neeraj kept. There was no access to water, so we went out. It was evening, and quite cold. We visited some small shops (the hotel was in a residential area and not many shops were around) but we could not explain "water" (some thought "vodka"). Finally in one restaurant they understood and filled harini's bottle with water, and took no charge. We found their warmth and helpful nature was quite remarkable. We returned and ate a frugal dinner (bread with milkmaid and jam), biscuits, sweets and one packet jeera rice (shared between 3), and went to bed. We were woken up by the landlady who came with a phone, over which the landlord was inquiring about payment. It was decided that each would pay 10K JPY on that day, and the rest after 2 days. This was done and we returned to bed.

Day 3: March 25

We slept heavily, and got up late. Actually i had woken up around 7am and bathed, but on seeing that neeraj was still sleeping when i was done, i also slept again. Around 9:30am we were all awake. Some breakfast was prepared and eaten (my bread and biscuits, Neeraj's milkmaid and moong laddu and Harini's MTR upma). We had conferred with Chandra Sir over video chat and decided to meet at Kyoto station at 11:30, move around the region for 1 hr and start for the conference venue at 12:30pm by subway. By the time we could start from the hotel it was past 12, and we had no means of informing sir. So we decided to move to the conference center instead of Kyoto station, as we all had to reach the venue by 1pm, and sir would come by himself. I had drawn a map of the route from the hotel to the nearest subway station Kitaoji, and we walked there, with some help from pedestrians/ policemen. It took 20 minutes. We bought tickets from vending machines which were easy to use, and promptly returned change. A train bound for Kokusai-Kaikan soon came and we boarded it. We reached in 10minutes, reached the venue and registered. Sir had also come over. Neeraj registered for a tutorial for the following day with my credit card. On 25th me and sir had a tutorial, but they had none. It was decided that during the tutorial hours (1:30-4:30pm) they would see around the venue and the places outside, and we would meet at the station at 4:30. The tutorial was not that good. At 4:30pm me and sir moved out to the station but could not find them. We moved back to the conference venue door but they were not seen anywhere. Sir was feeling cold, and wanted to get back to the hotel. So after waiting till 5:15pm we started back. I got down in Kitaoji and walked up to the hotel, and got the landlady to open the door for me with a "master key". They returned about an hour later. It turned out that they were looking for us between the venue gate and the tutorial hall. Neeraj was slightly unwell and went to bed early, without eating much. Me and Harini ate cup-noodles which she had brought. It seemed a bit too spicy.

Neeraj had brought his laptop and every day after returning from the conference he used to call home through skype. After that i would either send a mail to someone to call home or chat with bub if he was online. After that Harini would take the laptop and keep it for the night, as she talked with her family for long durations over skype. I never used it as making calls over skype requires charges.

Day 4: March 26

We woke up early and went to the venue by 9:30am. The walk to the Kitaoji station was long, and we considered renting bicycles from the hotel. In Kyoto, bicycles travel over the footpaths, and the station had a place to park bicycles. But somehow this plan was never implemented. In the first hour they went to attend some workshop, while I sat outside and read the conference booklets. We had some lunch (Harini's methi paratha and biscuits) which we ate around 1:30pm. After that all of us went to tutorials. We regrouped at 5pm for the welcome drinks session. Apart from the japanese alcohol "saki" (O saaki saaki re) there were many snacks. The non-veg snacks were beef,pork,duck etc. Sir tried out some of those things. We ate veg snacks like pasta and mashed potatoes (which was quite delicious). Around 7pm we left for the hotel. The landlord came and collected the remaining amount. He also showed the different facilities like the washing machine and the microwave which were outside the room, and shared by all the inmates (there were hardly any). Harini cooked some jeera rice and upma for dinner.

Day 5- March 27

The conference started this day. Every day there would be a plenery talk in the morning, followed by 3 sessions- each of 2 hrs. In between there would be a lunch break of 1.5 hrs and a tea break of 0.5 hrs. Each session included several lecture sessions and poster sessions parallelly, and participants would have to plan attending presentations by looking at the schedule beforehand.

On the previous night, when the landlord had come, he had showed us that one of the taps in the room provided drinking water. Also I had also bought a bottle of water from a vending machine and Harini had brought her bottle, and we used to collect water from the conference venue. This morning, I cooked my first packet of maggi for breakfast. Harini liked it, but Neeraj felt it was a bit lacking in masala, so he added some masala on the cooked maggi itself. We took the subway as usual and went to the venue. After lunch was Neeraj's presentation. We met at lunchtime. I got my lunch box (pic sent) while they ate methi parathas and some other things which Harini had packed and brought. Along with the lunch came a packet of tasteless green tea. After lunch we put up the poster together. When the session started we went around visiting the different posters. This session had many posters which were interesting for me, but the next session was quite barren. In the evening, after the conference, we met sir who wanted to go to an Indian Restaturant called "Kerala" very close to his hotel. We took the subway, changed trains at a station called Karasuma-Oike and reached the hotel, where we had dinner (jal-frezy and pakada). We took a taxi and returned. Now we knew the names of the roads and crossings, and so this time there was much less trouble. The taxi driver pronounced the hotel's name as "Gween Ga-ga-ga-gablso" which Harini found very amusing, and throughout the rest of the trip referred to the hotel by that name.

Day 6-March 28

Harini's presentation in first session. I cooked two packets of maggi in the morning- one for breakfast and another to be packed for lunch. I added a bit more masala this time. Neeraj was happy. We skipped the plenery talk and reached shortly before the first session. We put up Harini's poster, and then went around attending other lectures and posters. At lunchtime we met again and ate the maggi, biscuits and my box lunch (it seemed worse than the previous day). After lunch we considered going around the conference area- there were hills and scenic spots around. Neeraj had some talks to attend, so I and Harini went. We roamed around for almost 2 hours, taking lots of snaps. There was a hill with steps leading up to the top, which we climbed. Afterwards we returned to the venue. The afternoon session was nearing its end. When we were waiting for the next session harini got a call from home (her mobile was active) that an earthquake had happenned in Japan. We searched the internet (Harini had an iPad and the conference venue had Wi-fi) from which we learnt that it had happenned the previous day in North Japan. I made a call to mum using a telephone which I found in the conference venue, and fortunately the connection worked at first chance. When the conference ended we took the train back, had dinner (pasta, pongal etc) and went to bed.

Day 7: March 29

Neeraj and I wanted to attend the pleneray talk, but Harini wanted to sleep. I had set an alarm and got up early (I did this every day) but Neeraj woke up very late, and by then it was already time to leave. Harini was still sleeping. Breakfast had not been made. It was decided that all 3 will go separately. I went first, Neeraj started 10 minutes after me and Harini after an hour. I attended the talk and ate breakfast there (some snacks and bananas were laid out on tables after each session, but they were cleaned up very fast, in 5 minutes). After that Harini came. None of us had any important session to attend, and we considered visiting Imperial Palace of Kyoto. But one of the IITM students told us that it required booking beforehand. It was decided that we will go with Sir to the downtown area (Shijo) in the evening. We met Pallavi- who had completed her BTech in 2011 and will go to CMU for MS this year. She was staying in K's House. I found out some talks to attend, and attended them. Neeraj visited the posters while Harini sat outside with her iPad. We ate khakra for lunch apart from the lunchbox. We skipped the evening session and went out with Sir. We went by subway to Shijo, where one IITM student had said was a temple. The temple was closed. We ate cakes at a shop and then went to Sir's hotel which was close to Kerala- the Indian restaurant we had visited on 27th. We went to some shops nearby where we bought some souveneers. Harini, quite obviously, took a very long time. We returned to the hotel by bus, after asking some people at the bus-stop which buses go to the junction closest to our hotel. The bus soon came and we boarded it. The system was to pay coins to a machine while getting down, and the price was fixed regardless of the distance. We ate pasta and maggi (my last packet) for dinner and slept after chatting for a long time among ourselves.

Day 8: March 30

The day of my presentation. This time, Neeraj did not want to attend the plenery session, and me and Harini went ahead. After attending the talk we came out and met Neeraj. Throughout the rest of the day I attended many other talks before my session (the last session) began. In the afternoon session Sir had presented Subhadip's work, and in the evening session (my session) he would present Mohammad's poster. Harini and I set up the poster. There were 11 posters in my Poster Area (and there were 8 poster areas). Over two hours 8-9 people came and asked about the work. The crowd now was much thinner compared to the first day, when the poster area was packed with people. In front of me Carlo Tomasi, the HoD of Sayan's department in Duke was presenting a poster.After the session we met Sir and all of us left the conference venue for the last time, after taking several photographs. We took the subway and returned to hotel, but on the way bought some chocolates from a large shop for our labs (Harini bought some umbrellas- to add to a few she had bought the previous evening) We ate pasta and cup-noodles for dinner and went to bed. Sir had asked them to plan for sightseeing the following day, so Neeraj browsed in his laptop for tourist spots nearby before retiring.

Days 9 and 10-March 31 and April 1

I woke up at 5am by alarm and got ready in less than an hour. The bag had been packed the previous night. Others were fast asleep. It had been decided on the previous night that we would have breakfast at 7:30 together, and i will leave at 8am, while they will leave for Sir's hotel or his station at 8:30 or 9am. But seeing that they were sleeping and there was time i returned to bed again. Around 7:30am harini came with a plate of pasta for me, but said that she wanted to sleep more. We bade each other goodbye and she retreated to her room. I finished my breakfast, woke up Neeraj to inform him that I was leaving, then started off. It was raining lightly. I walked with the umbrella till Kitaoji, boarded the train to Kyoto, found the main JR (Japan Railway) line for Kansai Airport, bought both tickets and reached the platform. Soon a Haruka came in from Kansai, and it was serviced for 10-15minutes before the new passengers were allowed to board. I found a window seat in an unreserved compartment. The train started 5 minutes late at 9:20, and reached Kansai after an additional delay of 5 minutes, around 10:40. I folowed the crowd and arrived at the Kansai Airport International Departure wing, and found the Air India Counter, which would open after an hour. I tried to make a call home with my card but failed. I found a small queue had developed in front of the AI counter, and I joined. There were mostly Japanses/Chinese/Korean people with only 3 Indians (a bengali couple and one Sardarji, who turned out to be Prof Jyotinder Singh of IIT Ropar (Punjab) returning from the same conference. the bengali couple were based in Mumbai and the man had been doing a postdoc in chemistry in osaka). At the counter, they did not allow the poster case, and it was sent for check-in. The boarding pass, immigration process and security check were done quickly (the security check was very minimal). I took a train to the specified gate (in Kansai there are trains instead of buses as in indian airports). The Air India gate was still empty. I tried making some more phn calls but none worked, after which i located a computer. It was a slow machine with an outdated browser (IE5) and sent a mail to Swagato,Souri,Shweta and Neeraja to inform home, with a protocol to ensure that only one of them called. The passengers started to arrive and at length Pallavi and Prof Umesh of IITM arrived. The gate opened and we boarded the plane. There was some manual frisking before boarding the plane. I had a window seat with Prof Umesh on the aisle seat and the middle seat vacant. We flew to HongKong in over 4 hours. Food was served (rice, curry, bread, butter, yoghurt and a sweet dish). At Hongkong we halted for an hour while new passengers boarded. A Delhi-based muslim father-and-son duo had separated seats and they requested me to move to the seat behind me, so that they could sit in the window-and-sandwich seats next to Prof Umesh. I now sat between a Sikkemese and a Western man. The same food was served once again. We were also given a form for immigration purposes. Meanwhile I watched 4 movies in succession. At length Delhi was reached. All the passengers moved in a queue to the customs counter where we submitted the forms given in the aircraft. After that we went to the luggage retrieval center, and my poster case arived very soon. Pallavi would go to Mumbai in 2 hours, Prof Umesh to Chennai after spending the night at his relative's home and Prof Singh to Punjab by train, so we all separated. I proceeded to the domestic terminal, and found a place to sit, but the policeman told me that i could not enter the main airport till 2:15am (my flight was at 6:15am). I found a place to charge my mobile. There were many other passengers waiting in the same lounge to enter the airport for the early morning flights. At 2:15am the policeman himself called me and asked me to go in. I found the Air-India counters after some search, and got the boarding pass. They did not object to the poster case. The security check was done and I proceeded to the gate. It was only 3:15am. At length the gate was opened and we boarded the aircraft. We reached Bangalore after 2.5 hours. I had an aisle seat. Breakfast was served (masala idly, sambhar, bread and butter). After reaching bangalore i found Bias 11 and reached iisc in an hour.

On IPL and "Dadaianism"

So the Indian Premier League Season V is on its way. Once again, people all over the country are shouting themselves hoarse over some teams named after Indian cities It was an unique ploy by the cricket-businessmen to make their cash-rich tournament of junk cricket popular across India- they named the teams after some cities. They hoped to polarize the Indian people by regional sentiments by doing so. And bingo, they were immediately successful. People from those cities, and the states in which those are located, immediately started going gaga over these teams.It was conveniently forgotten that none of these teams represent any city at all by team composition.

India is a diverse country of many languages, and for the sake of unity it is important for every region/linguistic group to be respectful of every other. And yet, the obnoxiously rich businessmen running the BCCI wanted to "maximize their profit" by striking at the heart of the unity of India by evoking regional sentiments. And we too were more than happy to forget about India's unity and play ball with these people. Although the IPL lasts for 2months, the polarization remains all through the year. This is not to suggest that IPL is threatening India's political unity, but it  is definitely creating discord among the people especially in large cities (where people have settled from all over the country), who, unfortunately, don't even care about it. And this seems all the more pathetic when we remember that these teams, though named after some cities, don't at all represent those cities by team composition. Some teams don't have a single player from the city they are representing.The polarizing power of regionalism is so strong that, people become blind to this fact. This tendency is both sad and scary. It shows how ruthless and greedy our businessmen are, and how stupid and short-sighted we have remained as a nation. 

Apart from regionalism comes the naked display of obsession towards individuals. People from West Bengal have always been very much fond of one former India batsman and captain from Kolkata. That is very understandable because there haven't been many cricket heros from this part of the country, and here is one who has been among the best batsmen and captains of his time.But the concerned player last captained the side in 2005, and retired from international cricket in 2008, though even in 2012 he is playing in IPL. It is weird to see how obsessed many people of West Bengal are for this individual player. In an attempt to prove that he is the best captain and batsman ever from India, such people keep throwing slanders against the current India players. The current Indian captain has already led India to victories in two World Cups and a large number of tournaments all over the world. Out of jealousy, the so-called fans of the earlier captain keep crying themselves hoarse that the current captain is immeasurably lucky. On the other hand, the victories under the previous captain are projected as outcomes of his brilliant leadership qualities.It is ok if people like the former captain, it is also ok if they do not like the current captain, but how can people make such irrational claims?
As if this is not enough, nowadays another group of people from West Bengal have turned against this former India skipper because he is now playing for the team named after a city different from Kolkata. They are now out to vilify him as an old good-for-nothing guy.

What I am most disappointed with is the role of the young generation- my friends. Most of them "support" IPL teams named after their cities, some very vocally. Some of them are always busy filling up Facebook with hateful and slanderous messages and cartoons aimed at maligning other players to "glorify" the said former India captain, or vilifying other cities which have IPL teams named after them. And to think that many of these people have studied in reputed colleges, some of them working in big companies and some doing PhD- in short they are considered the cream of the society. This is not to suggest that everyone of the current generation is like that- voices of sanity also are not infrequent. But I cannot help being deeply disturbed by the stupidity and narrow-mindedness of the young generation- the generation I belong to.

The Pathetic Stupidity: 2012 Rail Budget

Indian Railways, the third-largest railway network of the world, has been suffering from deep financial problems for quite some time. The overall service being provided also leaves a lot to be desired in terms of safety, punctuality and speed. In the 2012 Railway Budget, the current Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi decided "to pull the Railways out of the ICU" by increasing passenger fares across all classes. Most experts had thought that he would charge only the higher classes because his party boss Mamata Banerjee would consider a fare hike in lower classes as harmful to the "Aam Admi"....sorry- "ma-mati-manush" :-/. The full hike surprised many and enraged the boss, who will now try to get the Railway Minister sacked. The minister, however, is putting up a brave face and projecting himself as a martyr. I understand the difficulty of the situation the Railway Minister was in- he needed to improve the finances of the Railways- but had obligations to his boss. But the way he chose was very weird- displaying some bravado by making the hike and openly opposing his boss.

Whether fares in lower classes (Unreserved and Sleeper) should be hiked or not is debatable. One can argue that these classes are used by the poorer sections of the society, and that proportion is still significantly large in India, even though the towering buildings, glittering shopping malls and billion-dollar junk cricket tournaments often trick us into thinking otherwise. While a hike of INR 50 means nothing to the neo-rich in India, the fact is that some 836 million Indians live on less than INR 25 a day, and often have to travel long distances daily by train to earn their meagre livelihood. On the other hand, it does not serve their interest either if the railways become poorer and weaker due to outdated fares.

However, it is not even necessary to enter this debate to address financial problems of the Railways. The minister could have looked for other ways to improve the financial situation- the easiest one being to cut-down on expenses. Year after year, former ministers like Laloo and Mamata have introduced hundreds of trains, with the aim of impressing their naive countrymen and with scan regard for the fallout on the Railways. In quite a few cases these trains have been poorly patronized by passengers, but are still running. This is not only causing useless expenses to the ministry, but also causing congestions on tracks, resulting in delays and sometimes accidents. It seems sheer stupidity to introduce Duronto Express trains between say Howrah and Digha, or Howrah and Puri. Digha and Puri are tourist spots, and enough trains already exist. Then again, there are enough trains/flights between Kolkata and Delhi-including 2 Rajdhanis per day- why have two Durontos then? Dinesh Trivedi could have looked to cut down on expenses by singling out redundant trains and abolishing them. Not only has he not done it, like his predecessors he has also introduced 75 new trains, mostly on routes where there are anyway enough trains.

Another sheer stupidity is the conducting of feasibility study for high-speed trains (250-300kph) between some cities. It is easy to imaging the astronomical amount of money such projects will consume. The current trains average a lame 50kph, with maximum speed being limited to just 110kph for most trains. It is possible, without any significant change in infrastructure, to scale up these speeds, with some intelligent scheduling. The railway ministers of the recent past have hardly had any will to do that, and are daydreaming of plans like 250-300kph trains- which India simply cannot afford.

Yet another stupidity is running AC 1st Class coaches on many long-distance trains, which can carry just 16 people at rates comparable to aircrafts. Needless to say such coaches mostly run half-empty, and even the few occupants typically travel on government funding. By replacing it by an unreserved coach, the Railways can not only cut down expenses but also provide service to poor passengers who have to jostle in the two unreserved cars per train, or barge into the reserved sleeper classes, causing inconvenience to the legal occupants of those cars.

It has been noted that a large fraction of the railways' expenses are spent as wages to the employees. Indian Railways is the 2nd largest employer in the world. Many people think this is inefficient, and want to downsize the workforce. I don't cater to this view- unlike private firms which are there to make profit, governmental agencies have social obligations also, like providing jobs to poorer sections of the society through the posts of signalmen, gangmen, rail crew etc. However, in spite of having such a large workforce the performance of Indian Railways always leave a lot to be desired, which is unfortunate.

I am always a great fan of Indian Railways. Nothing is more pleasing to me than a trainride. But I am saddened to see how successive railway ministers have used the national asset as a tool for their electoral ambitions, while displaying ridiculous short-sightedness- leading to the decline of the Indian Railways.

zenith to nadir?

I had started watching cricket from the 1996 world cup. In the later 90s, India were a generally inconsistent and often incompetent team. They won some ODI matches at home, but in away Tests they were quite useless, and a draw was considered satisfactory. From 1996 to 2000 India lost 1-0 in england and west indies, 2-0 in south africa, 3-0 in australia. They did not do well in home Tests also. Then in late 2000, the corrupt, match-fixing, non-performing seniors were dropped and the relatively young team showed signs of improvement. In 2001 they won a memorable home series against the rampaging Australian side. Then onwards, india started winning test matches (though not series) outside the country. They started small, winning a test in Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and West Indies in 2001-02. After that a good 2-year period came, which saw them drawing 1-1 in england and more remarkably in australia, and 2-1 victory in pakistan (despite losing 0-2 away and drawing 0-0 at home against new zealand). While ODI fortunes rose and fell in two cycles once under Sourav and again under Rahul,  in 2006 under Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell India won a test series in West Indies, and for the first time won a test match in South Africa, despite conceding the series.

After a debacle in the 2007 world cup a golden run in tests started.  India won 2-0 in bangladesh, and commendably won 1-0 in england. After Anil Kumble took over as captain in late 2007, india won a memorable test match in Australia and another in sri lanka (though both series were lost 2-1), and Kumble signed off with a remarkable 2-0 home victory against australia. Dhoni took over and won series in Bangladesh, New Zealand and West Indies (though at this time they were weak Test sides), but achieved a creditable 1-1 draw in South Africa under hostile conditions, and another 1-1 against Sri Lanka. Meanwhile unrelenting victories at home over every team saw them rise to Number 1 ranking in tests, and held on to that position for 1.5years- longer than most experts expected. While India had won only 13 away tests from 1932 to 2000, they won as many as 22 (and lost only 20) away tests in 2001-2010. India were now a force to reckon with even in alien conditions. These victories (and some respectable draws) were achieved by memorable performances from Sachin Tendulkar (average 81 in away wins), Rahul Dravid (average 69), VVS Laxman (56), Virender Sehwag (51), Sourav Ganguly (50), Anil Kumble (bowling average 21 in away wins), Zaheer Khan (bowling 23), Harbhajan Singh (bowling 25) and other players.

And then.

Come 2011, and an injury-ridden Indian side was wiped out 4-0 in england. They lost the number 1 status in tests. The batting failed in all the tests, despite heroic centuries from Rahul Dravid, now 38 years of age. Eyebrows were raised, but there was no denying that incredibly bad luck like injuries to many key players and poor umpiring decisions had a role to play. But when they arrived in australia in late 2011, hoping to win a series for the first time, they have again been wiped out by an identically humiliating margin of 4-0. And this time no injuries, no umpiring errors, or any other factor that can be attributed to ill luck. Even in the 1990s 4-0 defeats were difficult to believe, and now there were two of them on a trot!! The reputation built over the 2000s has got vandalized at unbelievable speed. What's worse, the current team includes many of the architects of the victories in the 2000s, though 3 of them are nearing 39 years of age now.

When India rose to Number 1 position, experts raised eyebrows because India's bowling attack was not great. They had the world-class but injury-prone pacer Zaheer to lead the attack and the declining but still effective off-spinner Harbhajan, but other bowlers were inconsistent. In these two series, India's bowling did well in patches but could not sustain the good work. In both England and Australia the home sides' bowlers planned a strategy and executed it accurately. But in India, strategies are rarely made and even more rarely executed- Indian cricket is spontaneous. Also it is likely that the defensive tactics of captain Dhoni is partly responsible for the indian bowlers taking a beating several times. Often he set fields to prevent boundaries rather than squeeze the singles and frustrate the batsman. When two batsmen got settled, the team tended to stop aiming for a wicket and just go through the motions. This has happened in South Africa, England and Australia, and India has conceded several 250-300 run partnerships. In such situations the captain needs to keep encouraging and motivating the team, but that is not Dhoni's style of captaincy. He is a quiet tactician. He is tactically very strong in ODIs, but he applies the same tactics in tests, which causes such problems.

In the past 3-4 years, in spite of the bowling not being the strongest, or uninspiring captaincy during bowling, India has made a great record in tests because of their batting being phenomenally strong. With Sachin Tendulkar leading the pack, there have been outstanding contributions from VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. The first 3 of them were born around 1973, and because of their age experts had started talking about phasing them out since 2008. However, it did not happen, and with good reason. In 2009 and 2010, Tendulkar averaged over 78, and Rahul and Laxman too were near 60. But now, at 38-39, age has finally gotten to them, and unfortunately for India it has happened simultaneously and abruptly, giving no time to plan a phase-out. To make things even more unfortunate, the middle-aged batsmen Sehwag, Gambhir and Dhoni, 30-33 years, have also gone into a serious prolonged form slump at the same time. While the latter 3 may find form after spending some time in domestic cricket/county, there is no such possibility for the 3 legends, whom India will have to do without.

But in the defeats in Australia, what looked worst is the lack of application showed by the side. There were no attempt to change the batting order, let alone try new players. The only time a change was made in the team was in Perth when Ashwin was replaced by Vinay Kumar- an inexplicable decision given that Ashwin was the lone specialist spinner and was also scoring some runs. While Australia maintained run-rates of around 4, India could not manage even 3 in most of their innings. Their general air of surrender was symbolized by Zaheer Khan's shows with the bat. He is very far from being a rabbit, and has played several crucial roles with the bat- twice in South Africa in winning causes, and an incredible match-saving half-century in Bangalore against Australia. However, in this series, he simply backed away to the leg-side and whacked at every ball regardless of the situation, often throwing away his wicket.

During the late 2000s, Indian victory had become the norm. It happened gradually, and nobody may have noticed it happening, but it had happened as an outcome of years of hard work by the players, and particularly the flair and talent of the Big 3- Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid. But blinded by current success, India had forgotten the weak links- the ageing of these 3, the decline of Sehwag, off-form of Gambhir and Dhoni, absense of a regular no.6 batsman and inability to sustain pressure on opposition when a partnership built. The negligence has backfired rudely, and in no time India has plummeted from zenith to nadir, and a recovery does not seem easy.