"BOOKS" and not "BOMBS"

"If we had given them just one less plane
and taken that money and put it
into education,
God only knows how many fewer terrorists
and how many
more engineers and scientists we might have educated..."

- Bill Clinton

The Former US President spoke on arm-deals with Pakistan, during a conference in Canada. The Conference was about child Poverty and he regretted tha he couldn't

That's what I read him saying in today's Newspapers.
Well, It's never too late, Mr. Clinton!

Democrats Win in US mid-term polls

In short, it's the tendency of the Voters in US to vote like that.

In a deeper sense, it's the Victory of the Democrats.

In a much deeper sense, it's the loss of Bush Administration.

Whatever it may be, one thing is sure, people want a Change. And they want security and they want jobs and they want..........

Death Sentence for Saddam: A Farce?

So the so called court gave death Sentence to Saddam.
So what? what difference it made? virtually nothing, but I think one can't say anything by sitting by the Desks anywhere. Who knows the Realities over there?

My Basic question is: how accountable the court is? And why it's making such a hurry to give the punishment??

As for whether it's a right punishment or not? Well only time will answer it.

The Win In The Field, Lost On The Podium…

Yesterday, after Australia won the Champions Trophy, something happened during the prize ‘Distribution’ Ceremony that made many people unhappy. Some of the Aussie players nearly pushed BCCI Chief Sharad Pawar away in the heat of celebrations.

After the Interviews, the announcer Rameez Raja forgot to announce the Trophy and Mr. Pawar (who is also a Minister in the Union Govt.) was waiting for it. Australian Captain Rickey Ponting demanded the Trophy from Mr. Pawar. But Pawar responded him by asking him to step forward for the presentation. Ponting was so eager to wrap his hands around the Trophy that once Pawar gave him the Trophy, he and later Damien Martin nudged the BCCI Chief away and joined the Team in Celebrations.

Well, accepted that they are Australians and think of nothing ahead of a victory… Accepted, that this was like a Dream come true for the World Champions as they won the ICC Champions Trophy for the first time. Accepted, that they were too desperate to party…
Accepted, that this was a mistake.

Still, I think this is clearly an irresponsible behaviour and is punishable. Any Sportsperson, especially a team should never forget that they are being watched by thousands of people worldwide. They should not forget that they are Roll-models for many young kids.
Every game follows a code of conduct of some kind or the other. Cricket, the gentlemen’s game, needs a conscientious behaviour to retain its reputation.

I hope ICC takes some action- Oh! Well how can they? They’ll simply say that “Off- Field” things are not in their control or something like that. Pushing the things under the Carpet, that’s what they normally do, isn’t it?

An AUSSIE WIn

Australia won the Match and The ICC Champions Trophy and proved why they are World No One.
After an impressive Start given by Gayle, West Indies couldn't keep the momentum and were all out for 138. In the Rain inturrupted game on Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai Australia went on to score 116 Runs and were declared Winners according to D/L Method. The Aussies won by 8 wickets (with 41 balls remaining)

Here are a few pics:

Overcast skies in Mumbai during the final of the Champions Trophy, West Indies v Australia, Champions Trophy final, Mumbai, November 5, 2006. (Src: Crickinfo.com)

The World Champions went on to beat the Defending Champions to grab the ICC Trophy for the first time.






Ther was something for the West Indies to cheer for. Chris Gayle of WI won the 'Man of the Series' Award.

And Yes The Sunday Crowed in Mumbai was so cheerful and enthusiastic to support both the teams...

ICC Awards

It was a rather special evening in Mumbai.

The Cricketing City today hosted Hundai ICC Awards 2006, an event coloured in the colours of Cricket and Bollywood. (And an event which will make the last pages of tomorrow’s newspapers into ‘pg. 3’)

While Australia won five of the eight awards, India got none. The only thing to cheer for the Indian camp, apart from the beautiful arrangements, was declaration of Indian skipper Rahul Dravid as the Captain of All-Star Test XI of the year and inclusion of Irfan Pathan and Yuvraj Singh in All-Star ODI XI of the year.

The players who were winners at the awards, also known as Cricket Oscars, this year are:

Rickey Ponting, Australia: Player of The Year (Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy) and Best Test Player of the Year

This Aussie Captain is thrilled to receive both of these awards and also credited his fellow team-mates.
Ponting was presented the ICC Player of the Year award by Indian Meastro- Sachin Tendulkar.


Mahela Jayawardhane, Sri Lanka: The Captain of The Year

The 29 year old received his Trophy from legendary Imran Khan, former Pakistan Captain. Interestingly Mhela has just celebrated his marriage anniversary and walked in to the venue with his wife, Christina. And had this nice surprise waiting for him!

Michael Hussey, Australia: Best One-day Player of The year

Well records are enough to show how impressive he has been over the last year.

Karen Rolton, Australia: Women’s Player of The Year

Karen, Captain of Australian Women’s Cricket Team, went ahead of India’s Anjum Chopra and England’s Katherine Brunt to become the first to receive the first Women’s Player of The Year award. The addition of this new Award is a greatly appreciated move by ICC.

Ian Bell (England): Emerging player of the year:

Simon Taufel (Australia): Umpire of the year

Spirit of the Cricket Award: England


All-Star ODI XI of the year
Adam Gilchrist (wk), MS Ohoni, Ricky Panting, Mahela Jayawardene (captain), Yuvraj Singh, Michael Hussey, Andrew Flintoff, Irfan
Pathan, Brett Lee, Shane Bond, Muttiah Muralitharan.
12th man:
Andrew Symmonds.

All-Star Test XI of the year
Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey, Ricky Panting, Rahul Oravid (Captain), Mohd Yousuf, Kumar Sangakkara, Andrew Flintoff, Shane Warne, Makhaya Ntini, Muttiah Muralitharan, Glenn McGrath.
12th man: Brett Lee.

photo curtesy: Crickinfo.com

New "TATA" Height

On the eve of Diwali, the TATA Steal announced the largest ever Indian takeover of a Foreign Company….and today came the news that the joint venture is about to bid for Brazil’s biggest Steal Firm CSN- Companhia Siderurgica nacional. Tata took over UK’s seven years old firm ‘Corus’ ranked ninth in the world.

Tata took over UK’s seven years old firm Corus, an Anglo-Dutch firm ranked ninth in the world. This has been a remarkable achievement for the celebrated Indian Firm who has played a part in the Country’s development. Let’s hope this recent take-over brings out another boom in Indian industry.

Sensex on another high

The BSE ‘Sensex’, finally reached to the much awaited peak for the last few weeks, it crossed the 13,000 mark. As the index went up 117 points to close at 13024 a wave of happiness spread among at the Dalal Street and the Investors and Traders worldwide leaped up with joy.

There has been a debate over whether the Share index is a real reflection of the country’s progress and whether it represents the commonest of the common. However, without doubt this is a remarkable achievement as far as the Indian Share Markets are concerned.

Finally the justice for Priyadarshini Mattoo

The Delhi High Court today gave Death Sentence to Santosh Singh who allegedly raped and killed 23 years old law student Priyadarshini Mattoo.
The justice came after 11 years, but It Came, finally, giving at least some relief to the Matto Family and a ray of hope to the families of victims in two other high-profile cases- Jessica Lal and Nitish Katara Murder Cases.

The Judges, while reading the Statement, observed the circumstance as rarest of the rare. However this has triggered the age long discussion over Death Penalty for Rapists again. Singh, a son of an IPS officer and a lawyer by himself brutally killed the victim. In my opinion, he deserves the biggest punishment.

However, I believe that killing a criminal is not the Answer. There is only one solution, which is a rather hard to implement, kill the criminal mentality and not the criminal. To develop a society with lesser no of crimes we need to work very hard. Till then, there appears to be only one punishment for a crime as wild as this one.

Is Roger's Dominance making Tennis boring? NO. Not at All.

In the life of every game there comes a time when someone or the other dominates the game.
and in the life of every Great Player there comes a time when he/she dominates the scenareo. (Golf and Tiger Woods, F1 and Schumacher, Cycling and Armstrong, Cricket and Australia, so on..)
and then Even a small loss by such kings of their time counts as much as a big victory.

This is Roger's turn. We should enjoy it and not get bored, well, It's not at all boring.

And by the way, Ther is nothing wrong if Roger dominates the game."Roger dominates" doesn't mean other players are not good enough.
It's just the class of this man that makes us forget about most of the others, including even Players of Caliber like Nadal or Roddic or Safin.

Tennis was always exciting and Roger has in fact made it more exciting.
He emerges as a great challange to every other player and they try to put their best efforts in.
So Roger has to win every match, every set, every game, every point on his own.

If not with the opponents, he is competing with himself, doing things he always dreamt of but couldn't do till now.

Although he has achieved so much, so much is to be achieved. He will have to continue fighting till there are players left on the face of the Earth... And I guess this struggle isn't less exciting!

Home win for Roger

A win in the Final, The Records, The Trophy, The Smile, The Emotions …

Roger Federer has done it again. Yet this one was a special one, a really really special one as it took seven attempts.
This time he has won at Basel a place where he once worked as a Ball-boy, a place where he dreamt to play one day, a place where he was born and brought up.

He won the Swiss Indoors, his fourth title in a row and eleventh of the year, beating the Chilean Fernando Gonzalez 6-36-2 7-6(3).

This is now becoming very customary that with every win he is setting new records.

With a win in Basel, Roger quenched his 44th ATP Title. And improved his winning record to 87-5
He has also become the first player in Open era to win 10 titles for three consecutive years.
Today, he celebrated his 100th day as World No.1
He also completed his 143rd week as World No. 1. (Only Ivan Lendle (157) and Jimmy Conners (160) are ahead of him)