Cricket: Yuvraj Singh Wins Again To Come Back To Team India!

He has been India’s consistent match winner since 2000. The moment he crosses the half century mark or takes wickets off his slow left-arm spinners India’s win gets almost ensured. He has won many a battle for his country. And, when recently he fought the biggest battle of his life his country gave him full support to win it with flying colors. 

Who could forget his incredible partnership that won India the NatWest Series Final against England in England in 2002? Who could ever rub off the electric memory of watching him hitting six huge sixes in one over by Stuart Broad in a match of the T20 World Cup in 2007? Who could pass over his contribution to India winning the ICC World Cup-2011 where he became the player of the tournament scoring 362 runs and taking 15 wickets? 

Following that historic World Cup triumph he faced the biggest challenge of his life. After a long drawn and agonizing bout of confusion and wrong reports he finally confronted the truth—lung cancer.  He was diagnosed with a rare form of germ cell cancer. He took up the fight against cancer undergoing strenuous sessions of chemotherapy in a hospital in the US, recuperation sessions and a long-term rehabilitation program coming back home. All the time he promised himself to get cured completely and to get to play for India again. 

Yuvraj Singh has indeed won the biggest battle too, and today the southpaw has returned to Team India for the ICC Twenty20 World Cup cricket that starts in Sri Lanka from September 18, 2012.

The Selection Committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had a meeting today in Mumbai and included Yuvraj Singh in the Indian squad of 15 players. After he took part in a training camp for over one month and was declared medically fit by a cricket academy his selection had been widely speculated. The decision was not without a few hiccups though with two members expressing doubt on his ability as he had not played competitive cricket for over nine months. But finally the winner had to be voted in. This definitely is a boost for Team India already on a high after winning the Micromax Cup-2012 in Sri Lanka in this month  only. 

His fans all over are eager to see him play again and win again and again for his team and his country! 

Along with Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh makes a comeback too after one year maybe to add experience to the spin department and pacer Balaji known for his swing comes back after three years perhaps for his effective swing bowling in IPL-5. Manoj Tiwary has also been included for his all-round performance in Sri Lanka. 

The BCCI has also declared the Indian teamfor the forthcoming series against New Zealand at home. The biggest surprise being the selection of spinner Piyush Chawla in both Test and T20 squad, because Chawla had done precious little in recent timed except for continuing to be Indian skipper Dhoni’s favorite like Rohit Sharma who still could not make it to the Test team. Veteran VVS Laxman was selected for the Test team despite his poor run in the Test series in England and Australia last year. Maybe his treasure house experience and Indian conditions were the top priorities. Sachin Tendulkar is also going to play for the country in the home series. Selection of promising players like Ajikya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara in the Test squad is good news too, but their inclusion in the playing eleven is doubtful as ever. Therefore the moot point of the selection was that in spite of the utter disasters abroad Team India still remains almost the same. 

Fight Against Corruption: Baba Ramdev New Savior?

The righteous minded hates corruption and wants this evil eradicated from India or possibly form planet Earth. Therefore, when Anna Hazare launched a movement in April, 2011 he immediately enjoyed unprecedented mass support and captured the national stage. Inspired by Anna’s achievement the immensely rich yoga guru Baba Ramdev jumped in the fray too with a movement against a related factor of black money. History was created.

As the internal contradictions within Team Anna grew mass support for the movement began to wane. The Mumbai fast in December, 2011 was a terrible flop and the situation further worsened with Anna Hazare falling sick frequently and going on a silence vow. Team Anna was plunged into severe introspection. 

Maybe inspired by Baba Ramdev’s star power, this time Anna Hazare decided to join hands and the two cult figures celebrated their union with a one-day token fast in Delhi in June, 2012. Sometime later both of them held a joint press conference and announced two major movement programs. Anna would start an indefinite fast from July 25 for a strong anti-corruption Bill and Baba Ramdev would launch an indefinite movement against black money. The venue was the national capital, New Delhi.

Team Anna sat into a fast with Anna to join later if necessary. It became inevitable after a pathetic lack of support. The Baba attended the fast on the third day and infused crowds into it, but the supporters stayed there as long as he was there. Lot of people criticized the Baba for trying to highjack the movement.

With no surging crowd and a disinterested government Anna Hazare turned political on 3^rd of August. Three days later he disbanded Team Anna saying the team had outlived its objectives and they would no longer negotiate with the government for a strong anti-corruption Bill. There will be a political party instead to enter into Parliament and change the system from within.

As planned, Baba Ramdev started his movement from today in Delhi. The crowds surged to nearly 20,000 people thanks to the Baba’s star power, but it was a far cry from the 900,000 he boasted of bringing in.

Now, the most significant development. The Baba announced a three day fast first and then the next program if the government did not relent by that time. And, it was not only a fight against black money, but also for a strong anti-corruption Bill with the basic elements demanded by Anna Hazare. He expressed his vow to always support Anna’s cause, but unlike Team Anna he had no political agenda and he would never attack or target any political party or politicians.

While the righteous wants corruption removed the very fight against the evil is becoming utterly complex and replete with question marks. The government sticking to its wait and watch policy and therefore the main opposition party, BJP, naturally is openly extending support to Baba Ramdev.

The movement is also becoming charmingly open for both corrupt and non-corrupt to jump in. For many corrupt souls it provides the platform to show off; in fact, it provides retirement benefit bonanza too. Many retired persons who dedicated their lives to greed and corruption and made a dirty lot of money can join in for a ‘safe’ social service. There is hardly any surprise in the poster incident today when Baba Ramdev’s aide Balkrishna who is in jail for a forgery case was shown along with the greatest freedom fighters of India including Mahatma Gandhi!

The politics of corruption goes on unabated!

Politics: A Question About Legitimacy!

Article first published as Indian Politics: The Legitimacy Syndrome! on Technorati.

One has to search the pages of history frantically to find when exactly someone might have called an elected government an illegitimate child. If the search was unsuccessful do not despair as yet, because it just happened in the largest democracy of the world. It happens only in India, if you want to buzz! 

It happened right in the floor of the lower house of the Indian Parliament. It happened in the very first day of the monsoon session that started today, Wednesday, the 8^th of August, 2012. It was expected the opposition political parties would storm the house on several burning issues ranging from ethnic violence to ongoing scams. But nobody could anticipate the desperation to reach such depraved levels. 

And, the question of legitimacy was raised by none other than the senior most opposition leader of the country, the former Deputy Prime Minister of India, the opposition leader of the lower house of Parliament till 2010, and the octogenarian, L K Advani. He had been one of the pioneering figures of the main opposition party of India that is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the consequent opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) that got elected to rule the country from 1999 to 2004. Under pressure from fundamentalist groups who wanted him to withdraw in favor of younger politicians Advani gave up as president of the BJP in 2005 and from the post of the leader of opposition in Parliament in 2010. At that point of time it was believed the grand old politician had finally retired. But it was hardly so. He went on with his Prime Ministerial aspirations and even countered the candidature of a much younger and dynamic Narendra Modi. His so-called goodwill trips across the country in chariots continued too. He never resisted from making political waves by uttering or doing something unexpected. 

Only the other day LK Advani shocked allin NDA and in BJP by declaring that the Prime Minister after the General Elections of 2014 would be a non-Congress and non-BJP candidate. Many leaders criticized his as already accepting defeat. Maybe the grand old man saw an opportunity to build on the ‘unexpected’ and wanted to make amends as soon as possible. 

So while attacking the ruling coalition on the continuing ethnic violence in the state of Assam Advani said he felt the present United Progressive Alliance (UPA-2) government was like an ‘illegitimate child’. The unprecedented remark drew unprecedented angry reactions from the members of the Congress-led UPA-2 and disrupted the proceedings of the Parliament. A normally calm and quiet Congress President Sonia Gandhi seethed with anger and agitation and asked her colleagues to demand a withdrawal of the remark. She asserted that a democratically elected government could not be defamed like this. 

That the Assam violence issue has rocked Parliament on the very first day of the session is perfectly legitimate, because the long pending crisis needs to be solved immediately. But the ‘storm’ raised by LK Advani was not a legitimate one. The Assam ethnic crisis dates back to pre-Independence times and exactly what have Advani and his party and his alliance been doing all these decades? If he has realized the immensity of the problem only today then his very realization is illegitimate. Politicization of the human tragedy must be stopped if anyone genuinely wants to solve it NOW! 

With the storm getting beyond him the veteran politician did withdraw his comment saying that his remark was in fact made in a different context. Perhaps or not he was blissfully unaware about how the bigots and the reactionary forces of the largest democracy had already started to feed and build on his remark taking the ‘depravity’ to Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origins. 

The damage was done. Another low was achieved in Indian politics.