Clean up drive?

 

After a long delay, finally BCCI cracked the whip on administrators, sponsors and players of India's most popular sport to clean up so called gentlemen's game of cricket. The interim president of the board announced a 12 points clean up drive to get rid of controversies surrounding the game. The main points are as follows

• To do away with cheerleaders  and after-match parties.
• To implement a strict code of conduct for all.
• To restrict movement in Dug-out area and dressing room.
•  To submit telephone nos. to BCCI by all.
•  To maintain adequate numbers of staff in Hotels, grounds etc.
• To instal jamming device in grounds.
• To hold Captains meetings.
• To restrict national selectors from associations with the franchise.
• To disclose financial transactions by players.
• To disclose financial transactions of players by franchise.
•  To prohibit players from using ear plug or a microphone .
•  To formulate security control policy.

Except 2/3 points above, like abolishing of cheerleaders and after-match parties by players and staff, which are welcome steps, there is no new thing. An international player of any sports goes through more stringent rules and regulations than these. BCCI even did not address the issue of 'Conflict of interest', if the board president can have his own team participating in IPL. There is another issue of ' Time Out' did not have any mention in the operation, which is suppose to be the main source of fowl play, by many.

It is difficult to believe that these measures can bring the game to its former glory. It is not a clean up drive, only an eye wash by BCCI.

 

US spying on foreign nationals

It is  horrifying to know that US government’s Intelligence department has been gathering information about foreign nationals along with Americans, with the help of giant internet companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, AOL etc since the 9/11 attack on Twin Tower in New York. These technology companies providing data which include emails, videos, chats, photos, search queries of users of gmail, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, hotmail etc. Specially of  foreign nationals, all over the world for intelligence purposes. The government official came to silicon valley and demanded turnover of user data for a secret intelligence program.

 Now all nine giant technology companies denied  providing access to their server  to the government and any knowledge of the secret program . They drew a fine line between giving wholesale access to collect user data and giving specific data in response to court orders. They said the government did not have the backdoor information.

 The highest authority in America has defended the government government secret program to gather information about foreign nationals through an act called Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with the help of PRISM, a computer system.

 Whatever may be the reasons for collecting user data of millions of people across the globe , that too, secretly is morally as well as legally wrong. The government and the technology companies both have broken the breach of  trusts. Millions of users throughout the world engaged in communicating with their loved one’s through these social media, exchanging mails, photos, videos etc. They feel cheated, shocked to know that all of their information was under surveillance by different agencies. The love for Facebook and gmail of the people are already starting to diminish.

There has to be a way out of this, the government should voluntarily destroy all the user data from their database, otherwise, they will bring huge problems for themselves.

Political Parties Under RTI

A public debate is going on regarding the applicability of RTI act in the functioning of national political parties so as to make them transparent as well as accountable to the people of India. RTI act was enacted in 1995 to make every public authority transparent and accountable. Here public authority means any institution which is in the business of governing the people and is funded by government. By that act, every political party whether national or state, should fall under this act to disclose information regarding financial or other functional matters, whenever sought by the public.

But with our utter surprise, we see every major political parties including Indian National Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India etc. all are united in opposing the Central Information Commission’s order to implement the prohibitions of RTI act  in the functioning of the political parties so as to make it more transparent & accountable. Look at their logic in opposing the order, congress party says, there is no RTI law applicable to political parties in some advanced democratic countries like the US, Great Britain, etc. So why should it be applicable to us? Communist party widens their eyes & says, how come other political parties can know our political  strategy? It is competitive politics. The Bharatiya Janata Party is very cautious in their approach though they oppose the order.

Corruption and malfunction are the order of the day. Every political party is indulging in this process. The recent expose of scams like 2G, Coal-gate etc. have shaken the public conscience. Nobody in this country believes them whole-heartedly. Public of India has the right to know, how these political parties function, from where they get their funding and how they spent it.

 It is wise to suggest that RTI act should be applicable to all political parties throughout the country except in J & K and NGOs which are substaintially funded by government and other international agencies.             .

FOOD SECURITY BILL

Congress Party is making mockery of the poor people of this country by not passing the so-called food security bill in parliament. It was never been their policy and now making lot of political noises before the upcoming general election which is going to be held in  2014, to win sympathy of people so that the election can be won. In fact all political parties are busy in garnering support in favour or against the bill. All those political parties believed in market principles, reforming ( or deforming? )  this socialistic nation, now all of a sudden became very pro-people. Everybody now understands the gimick involved in it.
      
Now talking about the bill, it was never meant to be a food security of vast malority of Indian population. How come 25 kg / month of food grain of rice or wheat supplied to each family, that too, to targeted population, secure their families nutritional requirement? There were no additional supply of oil, sugar,
cereals etc. to over come the mal-nutrition of people.

People are already getting 35kg/month of grain through various schemes of the government, this bill will cut their monthly allotment of grains by 10 kg.
Further more, the price of the grain is also a factor. It is now available at Rs.1 or Rs.2 in different states of India, but government has fixed Rs.3/kg of grain in this bill. The supply of targeted population is another drawback of the bill.

We hope Government SHOULD STAY AWAY from politicking and should focus on the genuine requirments of people to alleviate mal-nutrition. For this, our suggestions would be

• To distribute rice or wheat at 35kg/month per family.
•  To sell it at Rs.2/kg of grain.
•  To distribute it to all except direct tax payers through out the country.
•  To distribute oil, sugar, cereals etc. along with it.

Drama in Chennai

All those drama  of BCCI ends in Chennai yesterday without solving any of the burning issues that Indian cricket facing today. It is brazen to see administration of cricket in India once again fail to even address issues like   "match fixing ", betting & of course  "conflict of interest" in their board meeting in Chennai.

People of India demanded the resignation of board president so that the on going investigations regarding the match fixing (through bookies) by his son-in-law can go through smoothly without any interference from the highest authority. But they did not bother to listen the demand, even refuse to resign from the power they occupied. What they have agreed was to step-aside for one month but retained all the powers of board president.

 We, the cricket lovers of this country, want all the the  dirts  to be removed as quickly as possible so that cricket once again retain its glory.