IPL: CRICKET, GLAMOUR AND SCANDALS

When Indian Premier League(IPL) was established with Lalit Modi as its first chairman in 2008 with twenty20 format there were thoughts in every mind regarding how glamorous and controversial will it be. But with its ongoing sixth season it has been clearly evident that IPL is a package of cricket, entertainment and scandals. On one side it has brought recognition to regional players and fame to cricketers and team owners, on the other side it has also created problems for those who got involved in the scandals.

Lalit Modi, chairman of IPL, in 2010 claimed that the stake in  Rendezvous Sports World which Shashi Tharoor the then cabinet minister,  had gifted to Sunanda Pushkar , the co-owner of Kochi franchise, was a proxy for Tharoor. The war between them led to Shashi Tharoor from resigning from his post and Lalit Modi was removed from all his posts in Indian Cricket and was suspended from BCCI.

In 2011, Gabriella Pasqualotto was a South African cheerleader under Mumbai Indians reportedly written about the "flirtatious" and "inappropriate" behaviour by the cricketers. She was fired for  blogging sceretly after the post match parties. In 2012, five IPL players were suspended after being allegedly caught involved in spot-fixing in camera in a sting operation carried out by a tv channel. The players belonged to Kings XI Punjab, Deccan Charges and Pune Warriors Indian. This was the first time IPL came under the scandal of spot-fixing.

In the same year, superstar Shahrukh Khan when he was drunked created controversy by fighting with the security guards and abusing then at Wankhede stadium after they asked him for immediate removal of his kids and their friends . He was banned from Wankhede Stadium for 5 years.

The recent spot-fixing scandal involving S. Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan, the players of Rajasthan Royals is on the lips and the minds of all the people. The spot-fixing controversy spread like a fire and triggered a huge controversy in the middle of IPL's season 6. The three players were arrested along with 12 bookies by Delhi police on May 16 for spot-fixing where they were getting payments of more than 60 lakhs for pre-determined runs in an over. Also the signals cricketers used after they had completed their work came out in the public.

Three more people Sunil Bhatia, Kiran Dole and Manish Gudewa were  arrested who were "fixers", the ones who mediated between the bookies and the players. Rajasthan Royals filed a police complaint against these three players for spot-fixing. Now with so many controversies of IPL, its hard to imagine it without anymore controversies in future. IPL will go on and the scandals and tamashas will continue to entertain the fans of the glamorous Indian Premiere League.

Is online shopping a part of every household in India?

Online Shopping is a new way of filling one's shopping bag or so called 'shopping cart' sitting at home. One can buy "trendy" footwear, clothes, accessories, mobiles, television, laptops, tablets, etc according to their choices 24x7 just while surfing through net. Many online shopping websites offer their visitors to shop anything they wish just by paying online through credit cards or even provides the option of paying at the time of delivery of the goods.

Online shopping saves fuel, energy, time and exertion of people and makes possible the delivery of the goods of one's choice at the door step of the individual. People generally find it difficult to choose the desired product between the huge crowed of malls or markets. One can shop with mental peace the desired product and can review the products for hours by sitting on chair at home. One can check the details and can compare the prices of other brands offering the same kind of product with few mouse clicks.

IPSOS, world's third largest market research company, conducted a survey 71% people prefer shopping online. In that 29% prefer shopping on their mobile/smart phones, 27% on computer and 15% on their tablets. But how many people in India own all these electric goods. Has online shopping been able to enter every lane of the cities of India? One reason can be the incapability of people to own luxurious items like computers, laptops, tabs and cell phones. Moreover, there are still large no. of people who don't have the knowledge of surfacing the net. 

Also, most of these websites provide goods of various brands, i.e. they are brand oriented. There are still a large no. of households that don't prefer to buy goods like shoes, glares, accessories and clothes of any particular brand. They rather prefer to buy such products from local market. A good example of this is the popularity of various local markets like Sarojini Nagar market, Kamla Nagar market,Lajpat Nagar market in the capital city of India, New Delhi. 

So, although online shopping has been able to gain popularity and demand within consumers, it still needs to make its presence feel among the middle class or lower middle class society.

BRICS DEVELOPMENT BANK

A new entry into the world of development banks

With the end of BRICS Summit 2013, the third world countries have come up with the idea of establishing the "BRICS Bank". This development bank, something similar to the World Bank or IMF, would use $50 billion (CRA) of seed capital which will be shared equally among Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The first question that arises with this announcement is that will these countries work efficiently and have enough shared goals as a counterweight to the west.

What has come up as a surprise is that the idea of formation of development bank was proposed by the Indian government. Although, all the development banks are formed with various purposes, they are largely extensions of economic policies of powerful nations. The World Bank and IMF are influenced mainly by US and European Union and Japan has its influence on the Asian Development Bank. So, now its China's turn to have a development bank under its influence.

Now, if the arrangements are made such that the power of vote of the nations would depend on the amount of money contributed in its capital, then clearly China, being wealthier than any other nation, would enjoy the luxury of the most powerful nation in the BRICS association. If they decide to equally contribute in the bank, this may lead to problems with South Africa, since its the poorest among all nations and may not be able to cope up with the amount. Also this may lead to very limited capital of the development bank. Although the BRICS leaders couldn't finalize on the capitalization of the new bank due to the issue of voting rights.

Taking a look at the global response of this declaration, US has expressed its hope that the BRICS development bank will work closely with other existing banks. On the other hand, IMF said that it has been following all the updates with great interest and World Bank has welcomed the development bank and said is ready to work with a new bank to end poverty and spread prosperity all over the world. 

With all these twists and turns, it will be interesting to see the  establishment of BRICS development bank and how it finalizes its capitalization issues and above all how much support will it receive from the west and other development banks.  

SO WHAT DID WE LEARN?

The memories of the most brutal Delhi gang-rape case are still alive in our mind. And why not should it be in our mind, after all had any such heinous crime come into such a limelight earlier? Had anyone been aware of such inhuman and unnatural crime earlier? Nirbhaya case had shaken the whole world and had brought shame to the whole nation. The whole nation had fought against it and had struggled to bring justice to the victim. So what did we learn from this painful incident?

Women grew more worried regarding their safety. There were growing concerns to ensure the safety and security of the women. But did it change the situation of society? Women are still being raped, assaulted and harassed in the hands of the men. Crime rate has not decreased in the city. Even the six people who were held guilty are still on trial, although one of them committed suicide and the one who was the most brutal claims to be a juvenile and hence is being tried in juvenile court.

 Various departments or countries or organisations did try to show their respect towards the braveheart “Nirbhaya” through various actions. The United States had honoured the victim for the International Women of Courage Award. On 8th March, the award to 'Nirbhaya' was presented by the First Lady Michelle Obama and the Secretary of State John Kerry. Railway Ministry is about to make a formal announcement of naming the Chhapra-Anand Vihar Express (weekly) either 'Nirbhaya' or 'Beti'.

Government is trying to make country safer for women by clearing the new anti-rape bill and implementing it as soon as possible. According to the new draft stalking and voyeurism have been made non-bailable offences and provision for punishment for giving false evidence has been dropped. Age for consensual sex in rape cases has been decreased from 18 years to 16 years and this amendment has raised eyebrows of many. The bill contained the provision that if rape leads to death of the victim or leaves her in a vegetative state, it can lead to death penalty. Also the word 'sexual assault' has been replaced by 'rape', thus making the bill women-centric.

This clearly potrays that government to a great extent has tried to make women feel safe and has made possibilities that even an indecent comment can lead to people being held for non-bailable offences. But this bill has to be implemented and the result is awaited. But do women feel safe? Has the society learnt from the past experiences? Is there any change in the way women are treated in the hands of men? These questions remain unanswered as well as the question with which we started “So what did we learn?”

-         PRISHA

Achievement!!!

The reason why i am always running out of time... is because i live a fast paced life... n try to complete as much work as possible. I am enjoying college life as it keeps me busy and has become my second home. I had been working fr my college fest and was a part pr group so was working non stop for it. And den got a day break and after that started the DU fest. I worked frantically in it.. and my achievement was that our college came second in the fest. We went on the stage wid our teachers to receive the award from VC and we had photographs clicked with him. Two bylines, one photo credit, four certificates in a week.. and den being introduced and photographed with VC of DU.... what a week!

So as I had decided earlier dat i will be blogging properly next tym... so i m back here...although as i m new to blogging I have no idea of it. If I start talking about me... den well i m a very confused person... n dat is quite clear by the way I am living my life. I landed into journalism by chance... i ws a science student n ws preparing fr  engineering entrance exams... bt somehow i realised dat i had no interest in dat course. My bend was towards literature and hence i figured out dat i should do something in dat field... n i landed in this course. Bt nw... i guess it ws good i landed here.. cause nw i really want to be a journalist. I have been continuously working towards my goal.. although i m nt satisfied with my hard work. I am again running late now.. in my next blog i m definately gonna give an explanation of y me always running out of time...???

MEEE.....

Myself Prisha from Delhi. This is my first blog. I am pursuing journalism honours from du. It took good amount of time in customizing my blog. So actually nw i am running out of time, thanks to my college which has given me so many assignments. So next time i m really gonna blog in a full fleged manner.