News headlines and the Media

Three newspapers and two magazines, that’s what get delivered to my room the latter once being weekly. It’s really hard to find time to even glance through all of them, due to time constraints. They have so much content that I believe I will have to sacrifice my menial 6 hours of sleep if I want to just skim through them. While I continue running out of time, they do not seem to match me by running out of content.

So I decided to ponder over certain issues which are continuously making headlines and try to analyze them in my own way. First let’s take up the feud between the Ambani brothers. Well it could very well form a plot of Deewar part 2 directed by Vishal Bharadwaj. Two brothers engaged in spat of insinuations and accusations taking down business as well as politics with them. “The WAR of the Giants” is hurting the reputation of Indian industry which has not yet recovered from the Satyam saga. The advertisement campaign carried out by the junior brother indicates the seriousness with which he is taking this issue and why not. After all, 30,000 crore is at stake. It not often that a businessman comes out so openly against a cabinet minister (read Murli Deora) in office. I mean he is not afraid of the ramifications it can have for him and his business empire. But what I have concluded in all this is that it’s not the losses of the government which are his concern, rather the super normal profits of RIL, of which, he wants a share forms the bottom line. I am waiting to see who pulls this one off.

Then the case of Shahruk Khan being held at Newark Airport of US for questioning is one other news which painted the front pages of all top news papers. King Khan used to getting princely treatment at home could not tolerate the realities of the world and was hurt being treated like a normal muslim (as the US treats them). The Raj of DDLJ who has won countless hearts with his portrayal of characters who are epitome of lover boy was short of wits to convince the US authorities. The VIP syndrome in India is one of the worst in the world. Actually India has a habit of making it to the top on all negative parameters. We are the best in corruption, population, casteism, crime etc. Name the problem and we have it. India is a country where more people are exempted from frisking many countries combined. The day is not far when the number of VIPs in this country would cross the number of ordinary citizens.

BJP is another case of “LIFE CYCLE OF A PRODUCT”, and it is in a dying state. There is no internal control in the party and the succession planning which the best corporations in the world lay great stress on has been completely ignored by it. Soon Rajnath Singh will have to keep ready made expulsion letters ready with the names column left blank, so that he can throw out more and more party member, followed by complete state units, until the party has just one member that is him as the president.

Newspapers have the habit of blowing up issues and troubles in magnifying proportions but this time they are not to blame. In face the spice in the issues is reducing effort required on their part. I can only pray for some good news for this country but till then the media will continue to have a gala time…

Sachin not in ICC top 20 of greatest batsmen ever

Little master, Master Blaster, The Little Champion are just some of the titles bestowed upon one of the greatest batsmen of all times, the hero of India and the hope of a billion people, “Sachin Tendulkar”. Today morning while reading the newspaper I was surprised to find out that he has been ranked at No. 26 in all time great batsmen rating for test cricket batsmen and at no. 12 for the ODIs. Clearly for me these rankings hold no meaning, which do not think of keeping Sachin even in the top five. I am a student of a B-School and in our business rankings are not something you tend to follow closely. Statistics is something which can be easily manipulated and changing the parameters here and there you can place even ENRON at the greatest company of all times. What is more important here is for us to realize the role Sachin has played for the Indian cricket. At one time he was the only hope of a billion plus people and was treated like God in a country which treated cricket as a religion. Bookies were afraid of him and he gave nightmares to one of the greatest leg spinners of all time Shane Warne.
Well team effort is very important but history has always been biased to favor those who have lead their team or army to victory single handed. Such heroes are called one man army and become immortals in history. Team effort has never brought glory to a single individual. Pele, Maradona, Sachin what did these people have in common, that they were alone enough for the eleven players in the opposite side and the strategy of the opposition was also to target the single individual for victory. Pele and Maradona led their sides to victory single handed in world cups. In the 1996 Will World Cup Sachin alone took India to the semis, before the turning pitch of the eden garden wiped Indians off. And with respect to pitch also I must say that till Sachin was there on the field India was doing well. It was only after he got out at 64 did the pitch started turning abnormally. Maybe the pitch also knew that it was of no use to turn while Sachin was playing. Jokes apart this shows the power of master blaster and his talent. Among the contemporary actors only Shahruk is bestowed upon the title of King Khan, when maybe even Amir, Saif, Akshay are as good as him. The reason is when the Indian film industry was going through a slowdown phase in the late 90’s , and the films of all the major stars were failing miserably, Shahrukh’s films were doing good business. His presence in the film was enough for the ticket counters to make advance booking for a week. This is the power of one man army. Talking about the Gujrat CM Narendra Modi, his party was not supporting him for the elections. Most senior leaders were jealous of his rising power and all the senior leaders of BJP refused to go to Gujrat to campaign for Modi. He was all alone in the battle field but his determination and political acumen lead to a victory for him. It was perhaps the first time I had seen that news papers had written Modi wins Gujrat instead of BJP wins as they knew whose victory it is. Hence ICC can come out with as many rankings it wants but the master blaster will still be No. 1 for India and the world.