IPL , journey into the unknown

 0 Ratings
April 17th, 2008



 
 

IPLIndian cricket is on the threshold of a new era with the Indian Premier League set to start on Friday in Bangalore. However, the “birth pangs” have been rather hurtful with the likes of Lalit Modi whose brainchild is the IPL, caught up in a Media storm over draconian regulations.

Honestly, I am surprised that educated men can be so blind to reality as Modi has been with shocking restrictions on Media coverage of the IPL. The fact is that the IPL needs Media as much as the Media needs cricket to drive its business. There is no getting away from this, but then, the IPL in its anxiety to squeeze every last drop out of its property has gone overboard in a bid to protect the hen that is laying the golden eggs.

Even the FIFA could not chain the Media that won a battle over the coverage rights of the 2006 World Cup. Neither has the International Olympic Committee seeks to bind the Media with complex regulations that in the end is self-defeating.

Under the circumstances, Modi and his cohorts have blundered headlong in their undisguised greed for money. There is not even a pretense of modesty about the IPL that has already generated mind-boggling revenues even before the first ball is bowled.

If the Media, by and large, is exercised over these coverage restrictions, then it is quite understandable. Having said that, cricket in India has grown into a business behemoth thanks in the main to the Media that, in the first place, created undeserving hype on the grounds of popularity that at best is presumptuous in the absence of a credible public survey.

Kumble might miss IPL opener

In the event, the situation is such that both IPL and the Media have got caught up in a mess that is of their own creation. For sure if the Media (electronic, print and internet) unites and decides to boycott the tournament, the Modi and his henchmen will have plenty to answer to their sponsors as also the franchises.

With hardly 24 hours to go before the Bangalore Royal Challengers take on Kolkatta Knight Riders at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, there is still no clarity on the Media-IPL tussle, but it is more than likely that things would be sorted out as we head into Friday’s opener.

The controversies apart, there is considerable anxiety and apprehension as cricket steps into an uncharted territory. We do have the Packer example before us when the late Aussie business tycoon defied the traditionalists and the ICC to launch the World Series cricket that brought about a revolution within the sport, turning it into a viable business proposition. However, considering the size of funding in IPL and its mix-and-match teams, nobody quite knows whether it would be a success or a failure.

Since all the eight teams are owned by people or organizations with business interests, one has to expect cricket to take the backseat. At the moment, millions of rupees are being spent to “dress up” the occasion by way of promotions, advertisements, websites with cricketers turned into warriors and what not. The hype is at its peak and Lalit Modi has done his bit to add “colour” to the tournament that is essentially a domestic event with a foreign flavour.

So much so that the recent Test series against South Africa is already history. I doubt if any attention is paid to ICC’s letter to the BCCI seeking explanation over the “sub-standard” pitch at Kanpur on which the Indians spun out the Proteas for a series squaring victory. But then, what about the pitch in Ahmedabad that suited the South African quicks who shot down India for a mere 76 in 20 overs?

It is an endless debate with no satisfactory conclusion as to whether the hosts have a right to prepare pitches to suit the home team. In fact, arguments for and against are pointless, for you cannot expect the West Indies or the Australians to prepare pitches that would take to spin on the first morning nor India offering a green top surface. It is best that we stop cribbing and complaining about pitches and get on with the game, for nothing will change.

Reverting to the IPL, it is difficult to even do a SWOT analysis of the eight teams that basically are just a collection of individuals. The bonding among the players is still to happen and I doubt if it will ever. There is no question of teams wearing a “settled” look given the fact that the foreign imports will be jetting in and out with one foot in the IPL and the other in their own touring National squads.

The respective coaches have thus a Herculean task of moulding the players of different nationalities into a cohesive unit. Although the foreign players have been at pains to emphasise their commitment and intensity, the pride of playing for a club as against one’s country can never be equated.

As for me, the IPL is all about three hours of entertainment that is akin to our commercial films - watch it, enjoy it and forget it! After all, there is no Oscar award at stake.

I’m a classic romantic

 4 Ratings
December 21st, 2007



I’m a classic romantic
i do all the right things to make ma partner feel appreciated.
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What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us
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for me it is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside….Wish for what you really want..

The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal took place Novembe

 3 Ratings
November 12th, 2007



The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal took place November 12 – November 15, 1942, and was the decisive battle in a series of naval battles that took place between Allied (primarily U.S.) and Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands. The battle consisted of a sequence of combined air and sea engagements spread over four days, most of them in the vicinity of Guadalcanal. All of the engagements were directly related to a single effort by the Japanese to reinforce their land forces on Guadalcanal, and are all therefore considered to be different parts of the same battle. In two extremely destructive nighttime surface warship engagements, both adversaries lost numerous ships. Also, U.S. daytime air attacks over several days sank or damaged several Japanese warships and transport ships

iyguft

 0 Ratings
November 1st, 2007



urfyey

Dihydrofolate reductase from E coli with its two

 1 Ratings
October 22nd, 2007



Dihydrofolate

Enzyme kinetics is the study of the rates of chemical reactions that are catalysed by enzymes. Enzymes are molecules that manipulate other molecules — the enzymes’ substrates. These target molecules bind to an enzyme’s active site and are transformed into products through a series of steps known as the enzymatic mechanism. The study of an enzyme’s kinetics provides insights into the catalytic mechanism of this enzyme, its role in metabolism, how its activity is controlled in the cell and how drugspoisons can inhibit its activity. Knowledge of the enzyme’s structure is helpful in visualizing the kinetic data and

Hitler and the Sturmabteilung

 1 Ratings
October 9th, 2007



Hitler and the Sturmabteilung (SA)

Hitler
Hitler

Hitler posing with SA members in the late 1920s. Hermann Göring (who would turn against the SA) is pictured beneath Hitler, wearing medals.

President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933. Over the next months, Hitler eliminated all rival political parties in Germany so that by the summer of 1933, the country had become a one-party state under his direction and control. However, despite his swift consolidation of political authority, Hitler did not exercise absolute power. As chancellor, Hitler did not command the army, which remained under the formal leadership of Hindenburg as its commander-in-chief. While many officers were impressed by Hitler’s promises of an expanded army, a return to conscription, and a more aggressive foreign policy, the army continued to guard its traditions of independence during the early years of the Nazi regime.

To a lesser extent, the Sturmabteilung (SA), a Nazi paramilitary organization, remained somewhat autonomous within the party itself. During the 1920s and 1930s, the SA functioned as a private militia that Hitler used to intimidate rivals and disrupt the meetings of competing political parties, especially those of the Social Democrats and the Communists. Also known as the "brownshirts" or "stormtroopers", the SA became notorious for their street battles with the Communists.[5] The violent confrontations between the two groups contributed to the destabilization of Germany’s inter-war experiment with democracy, the Weimar Republic.[6] In June 1932, one of the worst months of political violence, there were over 400 street battles, resulting in 82 deaths.[7] This very destabilization had been crucial in Hitler’s rise to power, however, not least because it convinced many Germans that once Hitler became chancellor, the endemic street violence would end.

Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, followed by the suppression of all political parties except the Nazis, curtailed but did not end the violence of the stormtroopers. Deprived of Communist party meetings to disrupt, but inured to — and seduced by — violence, the stormtroopers would sometimes run riot in German streets after a night of drinking. Very often they would beat up passers-by, and then attack the police who were called to stop them.[8] Complaints of "overbearing and loutish" behavior by stormtroopers were common by the summer of 1933. Even the Foreign Office complained of instances of brownshirts manhandling foreign diplomats.[9] Such behavior disturbed the German middle classes and other conservative elements in society, such as the army.

Hitler’s next move would be to strengthen his position with the army by moving against its nemesis, the SA.[10] On July 6, 1933, at a gathering of high-ranking Nazi officials, Hitler declared the success of the National Socialist, or Nazi, revolution. Now that the Nazi party had seized the reins of power in Germany, he said, it was time to consolidate its hold. As Hitler told the gathered officials, "The stream of revolution has been undammed, but it must be channeled into the secure bed of evolution."[11]

Hitler’s speech signaled his intention to rein in the SA, whose ranks had grown rapidly in the early 1930s. This would not prove to be a simple task, however, as the SA constituted a large part of the most devoted followers of Nazism. The SA traced its dramatic rise in numbers in part to the onset of the Great Depression, when many Germans lost faith in traditional institutions. While Nazism was not exclusively — or even primarily — a working class phenomenon, the SA fulfilled the yearning of many workers for both class solidarity and nationalist fervor.[12] Many stormtroopers believed in the socialist promise of National Socialism and expected the Nazi regime to take more radical economic action, such as breaking up the vast landed estates of the aristocracy. That the regime did not take such steps disillusioned those who expected an economic as well as a political revolution.[13]

Before its execution its planners sometimes refer

 0 Ratings
October 9th, 2007



Before its execution, its planners sometimes referred to it as "Hummingbird" (German: Kolibri), as that was the codeword used to set the execution squads in motion on the day of the purge.[3] The codename for the operation appears to have been chosen arbitrarily. The name "Night of the Long Knives" is a reference to the massacre of Vortigern’s men by Angle, Jute, and Saxon mercenaries in Arthurian myth.[4] The phrase "Night of the Long Knives" in the German language predates the massacre itself, and until it became synonymous with the purge, it referred generally to acts of vengeance. To this day Germans usually use the term "Röhm-Putsch" to describe the event, despite its origins in Nazi propaganda claiming that the murders were needed to forestall a coup.

At least 85 people died during the purge although

 0 Ratings
October 9th, 2007



At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been in the hundreds,[1][2] and more than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested.[1] The Schutzstaffel (SS), an elite Nazi corps, and the regime’s secret police, or Gestapo, carried out most of the killings. The purge strengthened and consolidated the support of the army, or Reichswehr, for Hitler. It also provided a cloak of legality for the Nazi regime, as the German courts and cabinet quickly swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extra-judicial killings to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime.

The Night of the Long Knives

 0 Ratings
October 9th, 2007



The Night of the Long Knives (German: Nacht der langen Messer) or "Operation Hummingbird", took place in Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime executed at least 85 people for political reasons. Most of those killed were members of the "Storm Battalion" (SA) (German: Sturmabteilung), a Nazi paramilitary organization. Adolf Hitler moved against the SA and its leader, Ernst Röhm, because he saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his power. Hitler also wanted to forestall any move by leaders of the Reichswehr, the German military, who both feared and despised the SA, to curtail his rule. Finally, Hitler used the purge to act against conservative critics of his regime, especially those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, and to settle scores with old enemies.

Anger at military conscription during the American

 1 Ratings
October 6th, 2007



Anger at military conscription during the American Civil War (1861–1865) led to the Draft Riots of 1863, one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history. In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), Manhattan and municipalities in the other boroughs. The opening of the New York City Subway in 1904 helped bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the city’s worst industrial disaster, took the lives of 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and major improvements in factory safety standards