IPL: Big Money, Fraud &Immorality

I have always been skeptical about the whole idea of spending time in watching IPL in particular and cricket in general. This attitude has crept in to me since I have seen my favorite players like A.Jadeja and Azharuddin whose credibility came in to totters. I cannot describe how die hard a fan I was during 1996 World Cup.

But since then when I have come to know that results of any game can be pre-decided to benefit few gamblers through agents and players can be bought for money, I have decided for good to throw the idea to watch cricket for leisure and passion in to dustbin and have never gone back to that and as an exception would watch only India-Pakistan matches, let it be T-20, ODI or any other form. Because I know for sure that those India-Pakistan matches are like war in battle ground and actual wars are like cricket matches, we can quote 1947 war for an example, where Nehru unilaterally called for with drawl of Indian forces. The rest is history.

When the Idea of cricket league was coined and developed arguably in the lines of Football premier leagues of Europe by Kapil Dev, we have seen how big money sharks pounced up on by eventually dumping him and also his idea just to re-invent it in a different name as Indian Premier League. It has to be premier for many reasons starting from the magnitude of money influx in this business and continuing ED enquires on few/many owners of franchises, not to mention the remuneration paid to players.

BCCI chided cricket league coiners that the whole idea was just a business venture and there is no intention to develop cricket at that time when Kapil talked about ICL. The question to be asked to all those croaky politicians & corporate honchos, the kind of money they have earned till now through illegal means is not enough? For whom they continue to earn? What a breed of immoral bunch are they? When IPL was organized in South Africa, as a token of Corporate Social Responsibility villages were adopted. But in India they adopted the idea of not to adopt anything except money?

Though there were rumors for a long time that spot fixing is a reality in IPL every one (decision makers) chose to ignore?

The most disturbing fact how cricketing passion of a country as big as India is manipulated? And how these bunch of political and corporate criminals thrive. I refuse to accept the fact that those were arrested, around more than 10 people including 3 players of Rajasthan Royals franchise are the only those who committed crime because as they are allegedly small fish. It could be beyond underworld/terrorist connection, and political – business nexus must be unearthed.

I feel vindicated of my decision not to watch IPL in particular and other matches in general, barring India-Pakistan matches.

Looking through Thane and beyond

It is often said that politicians are heartless and their only motivation to stay on with power is to nurture themselves or prey on the populace, most of the times I denounced such a blanket branding of ‘all’ politicians as crooks. Running a political party is no different than a running a for profit business, though this was not the original intention/goal but the idea of politics it was only used to empower people. The whole government machinery is designed in such a way that it benefits politicians and in most cases it becomes irrelevant whether the corrupt is in ruling or opposition party, state or national party etc.,

The recent loss of lives in Thane Maharastra in a building collapse is yet another telling story. Sacking politicians (corporators) after the mishap, suspending officers and booking cases all are meant for public consumption and the gullibility of public is so strong that they would never be able to see the actual intentions. What can we expect from a crooked class which talks about the urinating dams if no rains? This is generally the attitude of politicians whose only unstated goal in life is to amass wealth and nothing else (emphasis added). Now it seems that no group has a moral plane to ride on when it comes to acting with honesty while dealing with public money?

To the question why individuals need money? The answer is apparent. It is needed to retain the power. The means employed to earn the money is not that significant, unless it is questioned in courts or a media group covers it. If we in lay men terms analyze what are the departments (it is individuals in the department) which are mired with or thrive on this black economy are the departments which interacts/interfaces with public more in a relative basis when compared to other departments. It is plainly assumed that no government dept. is free from corruption or free from corrupt mortals. In my opinion there are more than few departments which would standout and they are common in any/all state/s government/s.

They are:

1.    RTO office – Office which handles vehicle registration and issuing the drivind licenses.

2.    Land Registry/Sub-registrar’s office – Where all land ownership transfer transactions and other related tasks are handled.

3.    Building approval dept – the likes of CMDA in Chennai etc.,

Though few departments are supervised by independent minister or IAS officer etc under state government, few are handled by city corporations too. In our case ie., in Thane it is city corporation. It seems that it has been confirmed that the construction was build in forest land and is a 7 floor storey. The begging question would be then what the heck the watch dogs were doing? Please do not tell me that they had a heavy dose of corruption pills and slept off. In a yet to develop city like Chennai itself when the demand for housing is skyrocketing, we can imagine how it will be in megapolis like Mumbai.

Let us get down to real time scenario. If you are constructing a building, no matter what ie., even if you are doing after acquiring all the due approvals, you will still be intimidated by local corporators/councilors. (Recently CM Jayalalitha’s gag order to her party’s corporators was notable).If there is an illegality is involved, corporators are more than happy to help you (mostly well to do with and high profile builders) to flout the rules and laws, because only in such cases they could extract high fee. If the same construction is involving a high profile builder or constructions company it is a great feast for crooked corporators. They know very well that it is going to be a game of luck, unless and until some structure like the one in Thane is collapsed there would be technically no action, even if there is one that will only be a gimmickry.

We could see that the state government is simply washing off their hands by simply saying that corporation is not under their rule or control. Well! I would say gime a break! When these reckless politicians would act honestly. Then my question is how people friendly and no-nonsense is the approach to either get an approval to construct a building or how easy it is to get a license. Random public audits through NGO’s are the need of the hour on all such pending/rejected/awaiting to be approved plans to pin down the corrupt.

It is time for the Maharashtra public to urinate on corrupt politicians once, because these corrupt politicians have been urinating on them for generations.