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Showing posts from February, 2020

Obviously, Pakistan to Play India! Big Money Wins Yet Again!

As anticipated, the political masters of Pakistan have finally directed its national cricket team to lift the boycott and play India on 15 February, 2026, as scheduled in Colombo . The Masters must've thought the money at stake is too lucrative to continue indulging in such kind of grumpy politics. Of course, they had imposed some pre-conditions that included making the 'handshake' a mandatory protocol, but the ICC looked the other way. So, the PCB takes it as protecting the 'spirit of cricket'.  The Indian cricket board , the sponsors, the TV channels and millions of fans who do not necessarily mix patriotism with sports, if it's cricket in particular, must be deliriously ecstatic that all the revenues and hype and excitement shall be there for harvest thr oughout the ICC Men's T20 World Cup-2026 , co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka . Most of the Indians fans must also be ecstatic to have their heroes go on vanquishing the enemy neighbor and humiliating t...

An Ode To Arrogance!

Arrogance is one of the defining characteristics of human beings. Arrogance can be easily discerned or felt by us in every word or act or posture or gait displayed by the inflicted persons. We confront them everywhere—at home where the arrogance of the head of the household is as ancient as the homo sapiens; at workplace where the arrogance of the boss percolates down the line very often apart from the others in various sycophantic roles; at educational institutions where the most scholarly often displays the most arrogance apart from the others in various emphatic roles; in the ruling class hierarchy arrogance has been a trademark notwithstanding the transformation from monarchy/dictatorship to democracy in many nations of the world; and so on. Of course, no generalization has been attempted here: else, how on earth can we have the magnanimity of discussing it! The word ‘arrogance’ has, logically, numerous synonyms. Here we’ll mention a few examples so that our discourse is easier to ...

Cricket Of Whitewashes—Now New Zealand ODI-Swamp India 3-0!

Photo: timesofindia.indiatimes.com After India whitewashed New Zealand by 5-0 in the T20I Series now New Zealand whitewash back with a 3-0 triumph over India in the 3-match one-day international (ODI0 Series. In the third and final match today at Mount Maunganui New Zealand thrashed India by 5 wickets, despite a challenging target of 297 put by India. With NZ openers Guptill and Nicholls going-great-guns the Kiwis overtook the target with relative ease. In the first match the hosts assailed India’s target of 347, the stiffest and highest of the series, with quite a few balls to spare exposing the visitors’ bowling woes. Some Indian commentators have once again played with the word ‘complacency’ saying that perhaps the Indians were a bit complacent after the T20 whitewash! Well, over the decades this writer has been utterly unable to understand how a professional team affords to be complacent against another professional team in very competitive international matches. The hyped products...

Union Budget-2020: The Optional Personal Income Tax Regime In India!

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today presented the Union Budget for 2020-21 in Parliament. A few novelties are seen immediately: the Minister’s budget speech of more than 160 minutes proved to be the longest one in history; for the first time the Budget was presented in three innovative categories—Aspiration India, Economic Development and Caring Society with their divisions and sections; a new scheme of setting up solar pumps for farmers having barren lands thus allowing them to earn even without cultivation; identifying 100 water-stressed districts of the country for action in light of the looming water crisis; and a lucrative income tax regime of lower rates which only turns out to be optional. While economists and corporate stalwarts had been shouting all these months about boosting up the demand factor in view of a slowdown and growing unemployment the Budget didn’t list out specific measures to increase consumption or to provide more employment opportunities apart from...