How to fix fixing

I watched sadly and helplessly, like millions around the globe, yet another cricket corruption scandal brining the game to shame. Nobody seemed too surprised that Pakistani cricketers were involved in this - Sunil Gavaskar even indirectly hinting that one's upbringing plays a major role in their honest commitment to the game. This is not the first time that Pakistan players have been caught on the wrong foot and one indeed wonders if they are more corrupt or just more stupid than others who might be doing it, or just unlucky for being born in an unfortunate and failing country which naturally makes them more gullible to bookies who provide easy quick money.

Money, insecurity and instability are at least partly to blame - the rest being immoral greed. Otherwise i find it hard to believe that an 18-year old bowler would want to risk his career for a sum that is way less than what he would earn in match fees assuming he has at least 5 years of international career. As fans, we get frustrated that players succumb to betting temptations, but i don't think many fans bother to look at it from a player's viewpoint, especially if the player is from a poor country like Pak or Zimbabwe or Bangladesh.

Everyone talks about legalizing betting. ICC might do it this time, it will only add to one more revenue stream for them. But this will not end corruption until players are also included as stakeholders in the betting system. Governments/ICC/BCCI must remember that legalization of betting is not only for revenue and tax generation but it is for making the game more honest. ICC should get it right right from start if they want to legalize it, and insulating players from bets is utmost essential if betting and honest game are to co-exist.

How to insulate a player from a bet? How to make sure that a gambler does not bribe a player? Just because betting is legalized, private approaches to a player and private dealings will not cease - players will keep taking the risk of being caught red-handed for making a quick buck. But what if ICC's betting system gives a cut to players for bets being placed upon them? perhaps if players get 'betting fee' irrespective of their game, they will not feel the need to risk an illegal way to make money.

To elaborate - say X is ICC's betting agency, and gamblers want to place a bet on player P scoring a century. They pay their bid to X making up a betted sum of M rupees. X keeps 10% of M as admin fee for betting - P gets 40% of M as betting fee because he is popular enough to gamble on and also earns ICC an admin fee - rest 50% of M goes to winners of the bet.

There can be many variations of this and i don't even know half of nitty gritty involved in doing this all properly legally without tax evasion etc. But i am pretty convinced that any betting scheme should provide players a fee to stay neutral and play their natural game. I guess in the past stock markets and brokers must have been similar to what cricket and bookies are today. Systems and regulations would have had to be introduced in early days of stock trading to remove any wrongdoings by influential brokers or insider trading etc, similar measures have to be introduced in cricket.

There is no point in empty moralizing, we just need to accept the frailty of human nature and accept players as normal humans susceptible to all-too-human temptations. We have to incentivise the players if they are to play a fair game in spite of betting.

A golden oldie - for all musafirs...

साहिर लुधियानवी और सचिन देव बर्मन की रचना :

वहां कौन है तेरा, मुसाफिर, जाएगा कहाँ
दम ले ले घड़ी भर, ये छाया, पायेगा कहाँ

बीत गए दिन, प्यार के पलछिन,सपना बनी वो रातें
भूल गए वो, तू भी भुला दे, प्यार की वो मुलाकातें
सब दूर अँधेरा मुसाफिर जाएगा कहाँ...
दम ले ले घड़ी भर, ये छाया, पायेगा कहाँ...

कोई भी तेरी, राह न देखे, नैन बिछाए न कोई
दर्द से तेरे कोई न तड़पा, आँख किसीकी न रोई
नहीं किसको तू मेरा,मुसाफिर जाएगा कहाँ...
दम ले ले घड़ी भर ये छाया पायेगा कहाँ...

कहते हैं ग्यानी, दुनिया है पानी, पानी पे लिखी लिखाई
है सब की देखी, है सबकी जानी, हाथ किसी के न आयी
कुछ तेरा न मेरा, मुसाफिर जाएगा कहाँ...
दम ले ले घड़ी भर, ये छाया, पायेगा कहाँ...

राम निरंजन भजन

कबीराचे हे विलक्षण भजन आणि कुमार गंधर्वांच्या गाण्यातली उत्कट गोडी (ऐका) - जणू गंगा-यमुनेचे प्रयागच! स्वरांच्या ओघात यथेच्छ स्नान झाल्यावर अर्थसुद्धा अवश्य वाचा.

राम निरंजन न्यारा रे
अंजन सकल पसारा रे...

अंजन उत्पति ॐकार
अंजन मांगे सब विस्तार
अंजन ब्रहमा शंकर इन्द्र
अंजन गोपिसंगी गोविन्द रे

अंजन वाणी अंजन वेद
अंजन किया ना ना भेद
अंजन विद्या पाठ पुराण
अंजन हो कत कत ही ज्ञान रे

अंजन पाती अंजन देव
अंजन की करे अंजन सेव
अंजन नाचे अंजन गावे
अंजन भेष अनंत दिखावे रे

अंजन कहाँ कहाँ लग केता
दान पुनी तप तीरथ जेता
कहे कबीर कोई बिरला जागे
अंजन छाडी अनंत ही दागे रे

राम निरंजन न्यारा रे
अंजन सकल पसारा रे...

Meera Bhajan

लता मंगेशकर / हृदयनाथ मंगेशकर जोडीचे हे अप्रतिम मीरा भजन.
नक्कल हा प्रशंसेचा सोपा साधा मार्ग आहे असं म्हणतात. लिहून काढ़णें ही ब्लॉग-जगतातील माझ्या सध्याच्या आवाक्यातली प्रशंसा! शब्द चुकले असतील तर जाणकारान्नी क्षमा करावी आणि योग्य शब्द सुचावावेत.

करम की गति न्यारी संतों करम की गति न्यारी |
बड़े बड़े नयन दिए मिरगन को बन बन फिरत उघारी |
उज्ज्वल वरन दिनी पगलन को कोयल कर दिनी कारी |
औरन दीपन जल निर्मल किनी समुन्दर कर दिनी खारी |
मूरख को तुम राज दियत हो पंडित फिरत भिखारी |
मीरा के प्रभु गिरिधर नागुन राजाजी तो कान बिचारी |

RBI finanace education initiative

RBI explains fundamentals of monetary policy and banking basics in a comic strip format.

Viterbi and other gurus

Prof Viterbi has been one of the most remarkable academic industrialist in American telecom sector. His famous algorithm to find the most likely sequence of emitter states given an observed sequence of events has found immense application in not only telecom, but also distant fields such as bioinformatics. Coming to US in 1939 as an Italian refugee, he went to MIT to study electrical engineering. After his MIT masters, he went on to U Southern Calif for PhD in digital communications. During his UCLA lecturership, he formulated the Viterbi algorithm which was then so difficult to execute on a computer that its significance was not recognized. But as Moore's law caught on and world became more interconnected than ever, Viterbi's contribution has been recognized. Now he has an Engineering School named after him, a few companies, an emeritus professorship and also a venture capital firm.

Sometimes luck smiles on you and you get to meet most exceptional people effortlessly. Yesterday was one such day when I could spend some time with Viterbi. It so happened that Viterbi was invited to deliver a lecture at the IISc Centenary celebrations, after which he met up with the IISc director Prof Balram and got pointers regarding places to visit in Bangalore. One place was Strand, amongst others like Tejas Networks, NCBS and Infosys (unbelievable to be mentioned in the same breath as the three). I was essentially assigned the job of being with him during his Strand and NCBS visits. So I got to attend his meeting with the Strand top brass. Viterbi was clearly impressed with the variety of ideas we are investing and selling. Perhaps he would someday put some of his VC money in Strand. Then Viterbi and myself went to NCBS to meet the director and a professor there. Thanks to Bangalore traffic, both to and fro journeys took 10x more than they should and I could talk with the telecom guru one-on-one for almost 90 minutes. If only I had known about this for a day in advance, I would have prepared properly to interview him and posted that, yet the extempore conversation was also quite valuable for me. Prof Viterbi came across as a deeply content and happy person, with keen eye for all that is changing our world. Telecom of course, and healthcare, manufacturing, space travel, globalization's impact on the poorest, traffic decongestion, urbanization, construction workers and so on and so forth. He was extremely polite in entertaining my blabber as I am a nobody for him really. Big guys never lose sight of the fact that dignity begets respect in return. When we reached NCBS, we first went up to meet the director Prof Vijayraghavan who gave a nutshell view of his institute. Then he sent us to the eminent neurobiologist Prof Upinder Bhalla. Prof Bhalla has a composite lab with both computational modelling and experimental rigs. His work has been making news in big science journals of the world. Viterbi was most impressed by the rigorous analytical and engineering approach he has taken to study mice brains. This was my first interaction too with Prof Bhalla and it was a pleasure.

In summary, an unexpectedly great day spent with gurus of various worlds.

Ban single-commuter 4 wheelers from Bangalore roads

Anyone who has lived in Bangalore for 6 months would know the plight of the city's commuters. Public bus transport in India's silicon metropolis is way too crowded and slow for its populace. Metro rail will surely take 2 more years to arrive and it certainly would not cater to traffic on all the routes. Autorickshaw-wallas are not catering to the public, most are arrogant extortionists not quite eager to work hard to earn their money.

Thus, bus transport remains the only option for the commuting public in the immediate future. How to make their life better during the transport? How to make sure they reach their destination on time, with least amount of standing time in a smelly sweaty crowded unhygienic bus?

Many fancy solutions can be suggested: redesigning the buses, increasing their numbers, more flyovers and underpasses, expediting the metro etc etc. And the contractor/politician nexus would like all of them! But the single most effective solution is banning single-commuter 4-wheelers (SC4Ws) on road. Or at least taxing them prohibitively.

A small car can seat 3 passengers and a driver. An equivalent area in form of a bus can seat 6 passengers. A small car is such inefficient use of road space that I dont have to rant against larger SC4Ws. It is criminal insensitivity of SC4W users to block roads and give miserable time to bus commuters. And such insensitivity can be tolerated only in India. We don't protest because nobody cares and nobody cares because we don't protest!

Many would argue that it is the government's job to make wider better roads, more comfortable buses with more frequency etc. That is just shirking away from one's duties and conscience. Is empathy not part of good citizenship? Is accommodating other's needs not the basis of peaceful coexistence? How long the 1% rich would misuse 99% of state resources? Is it not simply inviting violent trouble?

And make a minute of yours green by thinking of petrol wastage due to SC4W usage on city roads. Clogged city roads can diminish the mileage of vehicles by as much as 50%! So its not good for the city's health too for so many SC4Ws inefficiently burning gallons of petrol everyday.

If it is too much legal trouble to ban the SC4Ws, there should at least be a heavy tax on such users. I am talking to the tune of lakhs per year! Let them understand the true cost of the luxury that comes by discomforting so many. That money can be then used to fuel the flyovers, underpasses, metros, better & more buses and the works.