You hate it, you love it

The dust has finally settled down after some exciting game of cricket, albeit few ridiculous fracas and uncalled for aggression on and off the field. We can safely declare, cricket is definitely not a gentleman's game.

Yet again the country was in the grip of cricket fever for several weeks. The Indian team created history by winning back the Gavaskar Border Trophy for the 8th time by causing a major upset to the Australian batting lineup in the fourth test. The win was most incredible considering that India was comprehensively beaten in the first test match by 333 runs. It was a real feat for India to come back from that loss and win the trophy with an excellent display of bowling and batting.

As usual there has been torrents of accolades heaped on Virat Kohli and his "boys". It is not easy to explain the way cricket casts a magical spell on every (most) Indian. It is incredible how the nation unabashedly adores these "boys" and puts them on pedestal, treating them like Demigods. After all, it is just a game!

The immense hero worship not withstanding, the way they roll in money is mind boggling. Just a few days ago Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had doubled the Annual Retainership fee of Grade A players from 1 Crore to 2 Crores. Grade B players to 1 Crore and C grade players to 50 Lakhs. As if that was not enough, the match fee for Test, ODI and T20 are also doubled. It certainly pays to be an Indian Cricketer!

At times it makes you green with envy and anger at the amount of money being doled out just for playing a game. But then, you can't help loving the game. Cricket has that kind of mesmerizing power over us. We have a kind of a love-hate relationship with this game.

There could be some odd (extremely sane) people who may not have fallen victim to this unexplained obsession but overall, the bug has bitten most of 125 crores of Indians. 

Even the judiciary is not far behind. Lack of judges is the most stated reason for long pending cases, pending for 10, 15, 20 years, cases related to brutal rapes, molestation, brutal murders, hit and run cases, land disputes, and so on. But when it comes to cricket or movies, the courts somehow find time for quick deliberations.  

Recently, the Hyderabad High Court found time to pull up Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) for spending nearly 76 Lakh rupees for four days of breakfast and lunch during one-off test match played between India and Bangladesh. Makes you wonder, what exactly were they feeding them, pearls for breakfast, diamonds for lunch!!!

Soon the yearly money spinning mega event, IPL10, will start. Some of the "big boys" will be again rolling in crores of more money. It is gain 60 odd days of cricket festival. It will again be a grand display of lucre.

And here is the hot news! On the request of BCCI, a Committee of Administrators has been appointed by Hyderabad High Court, which will oversee the IPL10 matches being played at Hyderabad venues. Such is the power of this game called "Cricket". It has the power to make people, however poor, rich, famous, or powerful they may be, to prostrate before it, to toe it's line. You hate it, you love it!

Who really is minding the store!

Sometimes or the other, we all must have come across stories of people who claim to be gifted with clairvoyance. People who claim to have the power of communicating with souls of dead persons, through seances, through trance or using some other tools (Ouija Board, for example). 

It seems Ministry of External Affairs of India (MEA) is also gifted with the power to communicate with dead persons through Email! Incredible and fantastic as it may sound, it is not exactly true. 

An Indian man had recently died of heart attack in Saudi Arabia. The Vice President of Migrant Rights Council had registered grievance on behalf of the family of the dead person on the Online NRI Grievance Monitoring System of MEA (Madad Portal). In response to the registered grievance, the MEA promptly responded with an email addressed to the "dead person", informing him that a complaint has been registered on his behalf and as requested his mortal remains would be repatriated to India at the earliest! It may sound unbelievable, preposterous, ridiculously hilarious, but it seems, this is true!

Details of the email had come to light because copy of the mail was also marked to the person who registered the grievance (VP of MRC). According to him, this was not the first time such a thing had happened, similar incidences had taken place several times before.

It is not clear if the glitch is because of bad design of the MEA system (Madad Portal) or someone at MEA keeps goofing it up. In all likelihood glitch could have taken place because of either or both the reasons. 

The way IT glitches are taking place in the government organizations, it makes you wonder, who actually is running the government IT Systems! 

Here is another shocking news that highlights the sad state of affairs related to IT systems of a very important government organization. It was recently reported that the portal of the country's anti-graft watchdog Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) had crashed on November 28 and "all data", I repeat, "all data" stored online till that date has been lost. What is more shocking and very hard to believe is, the data was never backed up!

So now, it seems that details of all cases of corruption in public offices are lost for ever. It is reported that National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been trying to retrieve the old data but without much success as of March 16 this year. It is also reported that, the CVC has been sending regret letters to all Right to Information (RTI) requests from citizens.

The whole thing sounds bizarre and outrageous. It is very hard to believe that one of the most important systems of the country for fighting corruption did not have a disaster recovery plan in place! The implication of this is very grave. It implies in very simple words that details of all cases related to corruption in public places is lost for ever. It is as if with a single incidence, all the people involved in graft have been granted reprieve from their crimes. As if someone said "abracadabra" and all signs of cases of corruption had vanished into thin air. 

The CVC data loss incidence raises several important questions. One such question is, was IT audit of the system ever carried out anytime internally or through an independent party? If yes, then how did they not discover absence of data backup which is one of the most basic requirement for business continuity? 

The whole thing sounds quite bizarre! What is more shocking is, there was hardly any discussion on this grave matter neither in the news media nor on social media. Hardly anyone had raised any question if this was really a system failure or human failure or result of some other more sinister stuff going on. 

It seems the shocking incidence of total data loss of CVC got buried deep under the most trending and raging news, Yogi Adityanath becoming Chief Minister of Uttar Predesh. For weeks now, this seems to be the most important topic the country has to deal with. It is very sad that people would rather indulge in muck heaping, trolling and other forms of sensational and vain activities rather than discuss matters of grave importance to the country. 

With such kind of misplaced priorities, is there much hope for the country? God help us if this is the quality of IT systems installed in the government organizations, and of people running them, and weird things that are taking place. We certainly need lot of prayers and good luck!

National Shame

This is a national shame! It has been reported that three civic workers suffocated to death inside a manhole while trying to clean up a clogged sewer or faulty drainage system in Bengaluru, India.

I know what happens next. Politicians will try to get political mileage from the tragedy. People of various political affinity will start heaping abuses at each other on the social media. No one will even pause to think that these men and women who cleanup other people's dirt are the lowest paid, ill treated and most ignored lot. That they work under most inhuman of conditions one can imagine.

The country spends  crores of rupees on election campaigns and other undertakings of least importance. But no one even thinks of coming up with better and "humane" methods of drainage system cleaning and maintenance.

The country has progressed in all spheres of development getting international accolades for various technological and other achievements. But we still need a man to swim in our dirt so that our drainage systems flow smoothly. 

We get outraged on matters related to film stars, cricketers, politicians and other silly insignificant issues. But our senses are numb to such social injustices. Very sad!

Economic Opportunism

Every year a plethora of special international events are remembered on designated days (World Health Day, World Water Day, Cancer Talk Week, Earth Day, International Women's Day and many others). Some remember the day through talks, discussions, slogans and messages from important people and not so important people. Some take the opportunity to turn it into a day of joy and celebration. Some take the opportunity to express their outrage through protests, strikes and sociopolitical activism. 

The most active participation is from commercial organizations that see the event as a commercial opportunity. However serious or grave the event may be, they want their piece of the cake, an opportunity for increasing wealth. In this regard, some hospitals are not far behind. An unsolicited message from one hospital reads "Your health is the most important thing to you. On this International Woman's Day, avail special 20% discount on your health check". 

While people are discussing and raising issues related to gender equality, female infanticide, rapes, and many other forms of oppression and neglect, this hospital is keen in getting it's piece of the commercial cake through health sales pitch. Nothing wrong I guess, or is it!