ChinmayC Blog

Morning today brought shocking and very sad news. Extremely talented and iconic film director Rituparno Ghosh passed away in Kolkata at 7.30am after a massive heart attack. He had not been keeping well for the last few days and was reportedly suffering from pancreatitis. He was just 49. An irreparable loss for his native state of Bengal, for the whole of India and Indian Cinema. Rituparno Ghosh was known for his sensitive portrayal of interpersonal relationships in his films. Making his directorial debut in 1994 Rituparno never looked back and went on to make nearly 20 movies in nearly as many years of his career—many critically acclaimed movies in Bengali, Hindi and in English. Even when he was not well in recent months he was actively engaged in his production work. He has a superlative record of winning 12 National Awards for Best Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Film. His films brought in more National Awards in other categories involving his artistes and technicians. He chose ...

His company, His son-in-law, His franchise, His IPL, His BCCI, His Indian cricket, His India cricket captain, His millions, and HIS India! He is the accused, He is the judge. He appoints his old loyally royally gagged warhorses to probe Himself. His Board includes ministers of the Government of India, His Board includes top politicians of various political parties some of whom are prospective Prime Ministerial candidates and His Board includes more equally moneyed honchos, but they say nothing, comment nothing and do nothing—blissful silence being their golden rule set by Him. He decided to present the IPL-6 Trophy to the winner and He did just that. That He could not give it to Himself or His franchise was a matter only He might have had an answer to. In totality, He is the perfect dictatorial candidate for the all-powerful President to rescue India from the clutch of a miserably spineless democracy. His officials work as the perfect sycophants to censor the media as we have today he...

The corrupt in India tends to demonstrate a sickeningly familiar behavioral pattern. Even after being caught red-handed they never want to let go of their gold mines out of which they want to continue making the easiest of money. Whatever the magnitude of corruption crime and whatever the pressure mounted on them they continue to propagate their magnanimous innocence. From politics to all other fields including sports prominently this behavioral pattern is evident. You can find ample proofs of this if you care to peruse and find the pages of this site. For such people there should always be one option—sack them as soon as possible, and better put them in jail. N Srinivasan, the hopelessly implicated President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), arrived yesterday in Mumbai on the way to Kolkata to watch one of the IPL finals being played tonight. In a brief encounter with the media he announced that he did no wrong and would not be bulldozed into quitting. He also made...

The dreaded Naxals, Maoist extremists, ambushed a Congress convoy last evening in a dense forest area near Bastar in Chhattisgarh state of India and killed 28 including several prominent local Congress leaders. More than 30 were injured including the former Congress Union Minister VC Shukla who is in a critical condition. Around 250 Naxals ambushed a Congress convoy of nearly forty cars that was returning after a rally and attacked them with landmine blasts and rain of bullets. The security in charge of the convoy ran of ammunition while countering the attack. Then the ruthless Maoists surrounded them, took away their mobiles and shot many of them in cold blood. This is the worst Naxal attack of all time in Maoist-infested Chhattisgarh, and follows the recent attack on a Doordarshan transmission center early this month that killed three security personnel. The Naxalism has also been a huge challenge in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra bordering Chhattisgarh in the east with freque...

Crime Branch of Mumbai Police arrested Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of the BCCI Chief N Srinivasan and IPL franchise CSK Boss, late on Friday night for his involvement in the IPL betting and spot fixing racket. Gurunath was grilled for more than two hours before being arrested. The interrogation was scheduled to continue throughout Friday night and next they the police want to grill Gurunath Meiyappan and Vindoo Dara Singh together to confront out the sordid details. News reports say that records of conversations between Gurunath and Vindoo are just explosive and it is now conclusively proved that the racket is as sinister as it is real. Now BCCI President N Srinivasan must resign. Maybe within twenty four hours. Most BCCI officials are of the same view as per news reports. He tried to cover up the IPL scam, he tried to safeguard his fiefdom called BCCI and he tried to protect his son-in-law through his money and clout. But now he must go! What happens to his hen of golden eggs call...

Gurunath With MS Dhoni Mumbai Police today rejected Gurunath Meiyappan’s request for an extension to appear for questioning. ‘He has to appear by 5pm today or else he will be declared a fugitive’, said a determined Mumbai Police. Big Money and Big Connections did not work for him this time. Gurunath decided to take a private plane to Mumbai and he arrived in Mumbai this evening, though a little late. At the moment he is being grilled by top cops. Just before deciding to fly to Mumbai Gurunath reportedly met his father-in-law or the BCCI President or the CSK franchise owner or the Managing Director of India Cements that officially owns CSK. Whatever form of N Srinivasan he met things did indeed start to happen. Betting is illegal in India except for on the racecourses. Even inside a racecourse a steward and his/her relatives are not allowed to bet, because they are endowed with a lot of inside information. Therefore, even if N Srinivasan was interested in drawing a line between betting ...

Whenever India does anything importantly right or wrong the Pakistan connection has to come up sooner or later. People of both countries like it or not. The Karachi based Don Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company connection to the Indian Cricket betting racket was already established in the raging IPL Spot Fixing Scandal that grows sleazier every minute now. The unholy mix of cricketers, bookies, middlemen, BCCI and IPL franchisee officials, Bollywood stars and dons now proudly includes that of umpires too. So far the umpires have not been blamed for anything seriously harming the game except for some wrong or lousy decisions on the field. But now, Pakistan umpire Asad Rauf gets implicated thanks to arrested Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh spilling the beans. Asad Rauf has been on the elite umpiring panel of the International Cricket Council (ICC) since 2006 and was getting ready for duty in the forthcoming Championship Trophy in June. Although not exactly an umpiring blemishe, Rauf has had a...

The IPL Spot Fixing Scandal has been throwing up more and more sinister skeletons out of all its cupboards. The putrid journey into the vast and endless terrain of sordid details of bookie connections, underworld connections, Bollywood connections and top cricketing involvement is only speeding up. Police interrogation of the Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh, arrested yesterday for his involvement with top bookies, reveals that Vindoo was in constant touch with Gurunath, the son-in-law of the BCCI boss and owner of the IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings (CSK). This leads the racket right up to the top level of BCCI itself. Interestingly, Vindoo was a close friend of the wife of Mahendra Singh Dhoni--the Indian Captain and Captain of CSK--as stadium and party photographs amply demonstrate. This spells big trouble for BCCI and this may also indicate why the Board was not interested in tough action. You may ask--was that emergency meet of the Board addressed by the President or t...

The Spot Fixing scandal surrounding the money spinning Indian Premiere League (IPL) is becoming bigger, louder and murkier every passing day. Today, Mumbai Police arrested the son of the legendary wrestler-actor Dara Singh and a Bollywood cum television actor Vindoo Dara Sing for his alleged links with the bookies. Vindoo was supposedly acting as a conduit between the bookies and the cricketers to fix match or sessions or spots in the IPL tournament. Sources reveal that he was earlier questioned by Mumbai Police in this regard. The winner of the television reality show Big Boss -Season 3 hosted by none other than Amitabh Bachchan in 2009, Vindoo Dara Singh was remanded to police custody till the 24 th of May. This is the first official instance of Bollywood link to bookies apart from the big-money franchisee links to the IPL. Also, after Sanjay Dutt it is the second back to back Bollywood instance of spoilt brats putting their great parents to shame. As a booster for the Delhi Polic...

After showing no urgency in the emergency meet yesterday in Chennai the BCCI seemed to have passed the buck over to the affected IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals (RR). Accordingly today the RR has distanced itself from the implicated players and is likely to file an FIR with the police against them. However, more promisingly, the BCCI has sent its officials to Delhi to meet Delhi Police in a supposed effort to get more information on the IPL Spot Fixing case. Yesterday, the BCCI President N Srinivasan had denied having enough information from the police. Meanwhile, Delhi police has arrested a former Ranji cricketer in the domestic circuit and two more bookies. At the moment the CCTV footage seems to hold the key for producing conclusive evidence in the courts. The Government of India, apparently shaken by this huge scam, is mulling to formulate a separate law to deal with match and spot fixing cases sternly. Indian Law Minister Kapil Sibal met the Sports Minister last night and discusse...

Even as the IPL Spot Fixing Scam got bigger in terms of reach, penetration and implications the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) held an emergency meeting in Chennai today and did absolutely nothing. Perhaps it had taken heart from the widely expressed opinion by cricket experts that bans hardly work as deterrent for the cricketers and therefore desisted from taking any tough action against the three cheats charged by the police with criminal offenses unlike last time when a sting operation exposed five players. The Board feigned total ignorance about the police investigations and referred to the three cheats as ‘alleged’ fixers saying that they would take action if the three criminals are proved guilty. Coincidentally, the respective lawyers of the trio vouched for their innocence. The BCCI seemed to have taken full solace in their own inquiry committee appointed for the purpose and reasserted that they would do nothing till its report is received. In fact, the BCCI Presi...

It was happening all the time; it was only waiting to get exposed. Since the inception of IPL in 2008 we have been steadfastly asserting our opposition to IPL in these pages and following last year’s sting operation we had indicated that the underbelly of IPL was waiting to explode. Unfortunately what is being played in various stadiums is cricket of course, but the myriad layers of corruption surrounding it are far removed from the game and are sinister games in themselves. IPL has always been a sordid saga of sin, greed, lust, slam and glam, rampant betting and money laundering, underworld sponsorships and blackmail. Most of the revelers filling the stadiums go there to freak out, have wild picnics, enjoy cricket movies and shout their throats out. They are hardly cricket fans! Delhi Police, always lambasted for its shoddy handling of crimes against women,   does good work this time by hauling up three Indian Premiere League (IPL) cricket-fixers in the dead of the night of Wedn...

Even as the worst crisis for the ruling UPA-2 coalition government continued to gain momentum every day this week witnessed two huge days for the media fraternity—Wednesday, the 8 th of May 2013, and Friday the 10 th of May 2013. That momentous Wednesday was a picture of ecstasy and agony—a political study in contrasts. And, on Friday yesterday heads rolled as expected and anticipated on a daily basis. The main national opposition BJP has been chasing the Congress led UPA-2 Government relentlessly, tirelessly and also ambitiously on the issue of corruption for the last at least two years. In its obsessed aim of cornering the Government the BJP, basically a political party that ruled India earlier, even did not bother joining hands with the anti-corruption activists—at times with Anna Hazare and with Baba Ramdev at other. But, the BJP was routed in the Assembly Elections of the southern state of Karnataka the counting for which was taken up on Wednesday for running a corrupt and non-p...

The Indian ruling coalition, UPA-2, never faced a bigger crisis than this. Already embroiled in various scams the last few days witnessed explosions of opposition ire and an increasing threat to the very existence of the government with the prospects of General Elections-2014 getting really fluid and volatile. The opposition political parties, prominently the BJP, demand immediate resignations of two indicted central ministers linking this to the ultimate and outstandingly maintained demand for the resignation of the Indian Prime Minister. They have been stalling the proceedings of the Indian Parliament session continuously making this 15 th Parliament the lowest productive ever in terms of passing crucial bills. The cornered Government has been trying desperately to buy time since it understands that even after sacking the two ministers the opposition would hardly stop and go vigorously after the Prime Minister—the ultimate target. The Government has also been trying to turn attentio...