Oops .. we are out of T-20 world cup!!

After watching the match i didnt know how to react. From the first over Indians batted, i was thinking they are going to lose this match. Excellent tactics by England. The man of the match was clearly Paul Collingwood. His strategy of making his bowlers bowl shot pitch worked wonders. The world has found a major weakness in our batting "Short pitch deliveries". I was amazed to see not one of our top order batsmen was able to hook properly. Surely there are few things that the team should work on.

I know i am not a cricket expert, but clearly i could see some shortcomings in India's performance.

One major setback was Dhoni. He looked a different batsman. He seem to be getting into the phase that Ganguly and Dravid went through at the time of captaincy. When their personal form is not good, it looks to be affecting his captaincy too. Dada went through the same when he was out of form. Major difference in Dhonis approach was his fearlessness. Last game showed he was a bit cautious. He sent Jadeja , trying to save his best batsmen Yuvraj and Yusuf. I think Yusuf pathan was the most under utilized player under dhoni. He has some awesome power hitting talent ( along with Symonds, Gayle and Yuvraj). He should have been given more balls to play. Shane warne made the same mistake in IPL.

Sending Jadeja second down backfired specially in this tense match. He doesnt seem to be equipped to hit big shots. He flopped against the NZers in the warmup game too. Ishant Sharma never impressed me in T20. Yes, Sehwags presence was important as he would induce fear among the openning bowlers. His absense had put extra pressure on Gambhir. Rohit Sharma not being a specialist opener cant be blamed. I would say bowling was not all that bad. We never gave away too many runs. It our unusual batting order that failed. I would still think the same batsmen if came in proper order would have changed the result of the game. But according to me, Irfan pathan would any day be my player in place of Ravindra Jadeja. And RP Singh in place of Ishant Sharma especially in t20 format.

Anyways, i can list 100s of things which a lot of people can debate on. The point is we lost the world cup. There are no rooms for a team to come back in world cup tournament unlike IPL. May be thats the reason IPL made more interesting watch. Now my favourates of the tounament would be West Indies. They deserve to win a major tournament. I want to see Gayle storm again and again. And also hope to see Indian team are back with a bang in the next tournament.

You really didnt know that?

Recently i heard that some medical colleges in Tamil Nadu ( owned by some minister or MP ) were offering medical seats to students at very high costs. Of course the previous academics of the students are hardly taken into consideration if they are ready to pay hefty amounts like 40-50 lakhs. After it was exposed by some TV channels, the HRD ministry ordered an enquiry and sent a team to investigate. Well the HRD did the what they were supposed to do. But i dont understand why they are making it a huge issue out of it. Why are they acting as if its they didnt know this had been happenning for a long time now. 90% of the colleges would have taken money to give medical seats. Its known to everybody but HRD. This is hard to believe that they really didnt know this was happenning.

Looks like these days govt acts only when things are exposed by the media. There are so many loop holes in the system that people always find a way to get their things done. We have a quota system. How tough is it to get a certificate that you belong to certain quote? Pay money you are sure to get one. If you want a rural quota, then go to some village school, pay the headmaster, the school will give a certificate saying that the student has studied there for 7 years. Who verifies that the certificate that headmaster gives is authentic? Now you can get admission with a lower rank in a good college. I have seen people change their religion just cos they come under ST category!!. I have seen sons of politicians getting admission into engineering colleges or medical colleges. On top of that OBC quota. Who know who comes under that quota.

Sometimes i am not completely shocked. I hear similar things happen in US too. How come Narayanmurthys / Azim premjis / Clintons sons or daughters study is one of the best institutes in the world? I am quite sure there would be smarted people in India who wouldnt have got admission into these institutes.

Any politician in India know what kind of corruption is going on where. They are masters of corruption. So it would be quite unreasonable to expect these people will do anything to reduce the corruption.

Scared of medical instruments

I studied in Kendriya Vidhyalaya school which was in National Police Academy campus. The campus had an hospital. I remember we kids (4-5 grade) used to go to hospital in the campus. There was a huge garbage bin in front of the hospital. There used to be weird looking medical waste in the bin. We used to find a lot of used syringes and needles. We took them and used to play with them. We then got to know that all kind of disearses are spread if we use those syringes and needles. Then we heard of AIDS. All kind of ads on AIDS were aired at that time. Looking at the ads we used to think that its spread through used blades, needles or by hugging others or kissing others. It took some time to actually understand what they meant. But once i knew it was speard using used needles, I realize that most of the doctors i met at that time used to reuse the needle.They used to clean the needle and syringe in boiling water.Who know how many diseases were speard by these doctors by reusing them.

i suppose even doctors were not aware of these precautions.

Recently i had been to a hospital for a dental checkup. I saw the doctor using some kind of dental instrument which is used to remove the tartar from the teeth. A lot of blood came off my gums while cleaning. All i was thinking was, is it safe to use that instrument? How does the doctor make sure that the instrument is not properly steralize before using? He uses the instrument everyday and might have treated hunderds of patients. And usually the doctor just uses the instrumemt and there is another person who cleans the instrument. If it were a needle of blade then we can make sure he changes it. But what about this costly instrument for which he cannot change everytime? I dont know how many of us actually think about it.

Yesterday i saw another instrument when i went to a hospital for a checkup for my grandfather. He was advised to take an endoscopy. In Endoscopy the doctor inserts a tube into your mouth and pushes it till your stomach and seeing if there is any problem. The pipe inserted is pretty thick and expensive. I am sure its not disposable after single use. I saw the person who was cleaning it was just washing it with water and some lotion. Does it 100% steralize it? i am not sure. What i mean to say is even today there are few medical instruments used in hospital which can transmit viruses or bacterias. There might be hospitals where people take proper steps to steralize. But what about small hospitals? 

What happened to my vote?

I was eagerly waiting for the election results. I was surprised to see UPA back to power and that too so convincingly. I had voted for BJP. I was dissappointed. I was wondering how people decide which party to vote. I got a chance to visit my grandfathers place recently. People in my village especially my family there were pretty happy with the election results even through BJP did very well in karnataka. They were hardcore congress supporters. I asked them what is the reason to support congress? Nobody was bothered about the work these politicians do. They are least aware of the govt policies as are most of the poeple in India. After discussing with a lot of people i found out the following. The elections are won using money. Each party has some representative in the village. The party members come to these people and give them money to distribute. The local party members go to each house in the village and distribute money. They have a copy of voters list. They know how many people in each family was eligible to vote and has an entry in the voters list. Each party has a rate for a vote. In my village it was as follows. BJP - 500 congress-200 and JDS- 150.  And most of the people voted for BJP as they paid more money. When i asked them why did they vote for money. They say that they know most of the politicians will make money and hardly anyone works. So at least in the election time they can earn some money. So one voter will earn about 850 in the election. Its a festival time for poor families who have many voters in the family. I heard that in some of the larger towns like Bellary in karnataka the votes cost 5000 per party. Imagine who much money would have been spent in the elections in the whole country.

I am not saying this is something new that i discovered. I knew this was happenning from long time. I do agree that money is given more in the rural areas than urban. Politicians are not bothers about urban voters as they hardly vote. They dont care about the educated voters as they know they are not their vote banks. Election days are holidays for us. When i went to vote i didnt even know who were the candidates in my region. But when i ask a person in my village, they very well know whom they are voting for. They know the name, caste and how much money he is giving. In some places money is replaced by local liquor or sarees for women. Its actually a very good time for voters. And opportunity for take some thing from politicians. 

Villagers very well know that in the time of elections, the farmers loan will be waived off. So they take up loans even when they dont require and wait for the govt to waive off. In one funny conversation one of my cousins who lives in a village in Andra pradesh told me people should not vote for Chandrababu Naidu(TDP). When i asked him why, he told that he is a strict person. If we dont pay the current bills, they would send the officials and arrest them. Congress gave free power to the villagers. I was wondering who did the right thing. Congress or TDP. 

I had been going to my village every year. I have seen some development in villages for sure. People are giving more importance to education. They want their kids to study in an english medium school. They are all proud of all the educated kids in the village. But govt schools are still in pathetic state. People dont prefer govt schools. Even they feel govt schools are not competitive. 

More land has come under irrigation. Standard of living has improved. But its mostly limited to people who have land. No change in the state of people who dont have their land. Untouchability still exists. It is quite prevelent in the villages. One thing which i was surprised to see was the mobile phones. Many people can afford mobile phones now. Roads have improved but once built, they are hardly repaired. They are laid once in 6 years. Contracters use very low quality construction material and eat their share of money. People are so used to corruption that they dont object giving or taking money. Some people tell me that i should join govt service so that i can make more money undertable. One important thing that is missing medical facility. There are hardly any medical facilities in the villages. Not a single Mbbs doctor in the village. And the second important thing is electricity, why should villages have more power cuts i dont understand. Power keeps going. Of course there is no drainage system.

So the question is did my voting made any difference? Even if people i voted for win the election, i dont think it would have made a huge difference. There might be 30% good people in politics. We need 80% to make any significant changes. I dont know how tough is it to develop villages. Simple things which they are not able to implement elections after elections. Firstly, every house should have drinking water supply. Secondly, there should be a hospital in a village with at least 2 doctors. 2 doctors for 3 thousand people in a village is not a big ask. Thirdly, they should have uninterrupted power supply or at least as much as urban people get. Fourthly, roads should be constructed and repaired regularly.And lastly a drainage system. Thats all people ask for. Thats the minimum quality of life they expect. I have seen political parties making promises and stuff. But in the past 20 years, where i can see significant changes in the urban areas, i see hardly 5 percent change in the villages. I am not sure what superpower status means when people dont have minimum things needed in life.