“The Sunday Telegraph” painstakingly collected and collated official ICC data, which shows India having faced more sanctions than any other Test playing nation in the past 10 years.

The daily also took a jibe at former India captain Sourav Ganguly, dubbing him “the game’s undisputed problem child, being hauled over the coals by cricket’s governing body a record 12 times in his international career.”

“Overall, Indian players have been charged for 43 infringements since 1997, for offences including intimidating umpires, abusing rival players, ball tampering, time wasting and widespread dissent,” it said.

The report pointed out that of the current touring party, five Indians players — Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh — have either been fined or suspended in the past.

And now, this is what the famous umpire of yesteryears, Dickie Bird, had to say about Indian teams: [Link]

“I have always found Indian team going back to Gavaskar, Chandrasekhar, Prasanna, Wadekar, when I umpired them, as gentlemen and I mean in all sense of the term. They all have been credit to the profession and credit to the game of cricket”

Like Navjot Singh Siddhu likes to say, ‘Statistics are like mini skirts. They show a lot but conceal the significant part”. The Australian media is dealing with numbers. Australians seem to be obsessed with statistics and rules. Because of which Ponting and the erstwhile umpire Darrell Hair did what they did. Human touch is absent in their dealings and that could sometimes work against them as it has now. Indian cricket team might not be tame anymore, but they are not certainly ‘worst-behaved’ as they would like us believe. This tour is getting murkier by the day.

This was on Headlines Today. It should be called Headless today!

First scroller:
SALMAN KHAN IS TRAVELING IN JET AIRWAYS 9W… IN SEAT NUMBER 3C

Second scroller:
OUR JOURNALIST IS SITTING NEXT TO HIM

Third scroller:
SALMAN IS SENDING MESSAGES TO HIS NEAR AND DEAR

Fourth scroller:
SALMAN APPEARS COOL AND COMPOSED

—————–

From the CNN IBN website:

SRK flaunts six-pack look, charms Sania Mirza
(and they had an interview with Sania mirza for about 3 minutes on NDTV)

Did anyone bother what the news was about?
—————–

Headlines Today’s coverage of this event:

With these scrollers running,

First scroller:
SANIA MIRZA SPOTTED IN A POLKA DOTTED DRESS WITH A SHRUG

Second scroller:
SANIA MIRZA’S ATTIRE ON COURT HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONSERVATIVE

the news channel had Mr. Dilip Cherian and somebody else on the studio to discuss the whole thing out. Is anyone channel bothered about what the event was? It was supposed to be a promotional event for the Sunfeast Open.
—————–

Katrina Kaif had once been to Jaipur to visit Salman Khan in jail. HT’s coverage with visuals of the jail entrance for over 5 minutes. The scrollers again:

First scroller:
KATRINA KAIF IS VISITING SALMAN KHAN IN JAIL

Second scroller:
SHE IS WEARING A WHITE KURTA AND BLUE JEANS TO SEE HIM

Third scroller:
ALONG WITH HER ARE SOHAIL KHAN AND SALMAN’S SISTER

I am sure you have seen funnier news. Comments section is open! :)

Photo Courtesy: The Hindu epaper (through flickr)

It’s either reality or it’s a show – it can’t be both! Whatever these American or Australian channels call their TV shows becomes a mantra for us! Suddenly, we have launched into all kinds of those shows (I refuse to use oxymorons as long as I am not aware of them!). But Indian television screen is a kind of used-scripts market. Any successful foreign show is just copied and pasted onto the Indian screen with even the same sets. The only Indian shows (reality or otherwise, but involving real audience) that did really take off were “Antakshari” and “Sa re ga ma”. Apart from that, every other show was a straight adaptation of the foreign original.

Anyway, I am not here to talk about the Indian shows that are doing the rounds and which ones are copied from where kind of an investigative study here. I was just wondering what’s happening on this ‘Big Brother’ show? Why is there so much of coverage on Shilpa Shetty being called all four-lettered words?! What is the whole issue? And is it an issue at all? These news channels seem to be relaying it on their main news headlines so much that you would begin to wonder if Shilpa Shetty is some official diplomat of the country?!  

To begin with, these 24/7 news channels have not much to cover till a ”Saddam is hanged” or “Abhishek gets engaged to Aishwarya” or “Why Afzal should be hanged?” or some such thing. So, when Shilpa is being called names on live TV it needs to be shown, right?!

Racist slur – they (the news channels) call it. Clash of cultures and class – the programme owners call it. Quite obviously, both trying to increase their respective viewership base. To damn with Shilpa Shetty.

Coming back to the real world (not the reality show real!) racism exists. Look at this post, now that’s real life. People want to be racist only to ‘certain ears’ and not to everybody. Sadly, on ‘Big Brother’ I guess the contestants forgot that they were being caught on camera like Gibbs was caught by the stump microphone.

Further, when you talk to people who return from UK and USA you get to hear so many stories of direct racism, but they bear with it and come back because they went there for a purpose and always want to come back to their own country. 

One of the CEOs of a top organization in India who has worked for 30 plus years in the US and came back once told me that it is impossible to grow beyond a certain level in an American company. They always prefer the American over you in case both of you are tied on performance for the next promotion. Now, that’s racism. And for real that too! So, the CEO came back to India and decided to settle down here for good.

A horde of my friends staying in the US and UK are constantly telling me about the racist attitude they need to put up with. That is reality. Nobody shows that. Because they say their society is tolerant and they will not tolerate such racism. If they pinch themselves they will also know that’s not the truth!

Unwittingly, ’Big Brother’ has brought to the surface what was always below the table. Raising a storm in Indian media, Governments are discussing what to do next (maybe a nuclear attack would have happened if we were US and the show was Iraqi!), Shilpa Shetty’s family doesn’t want ’unnecessary politicisation‘ - maybe their payment terms with Big Brother are 80% post-completion of the show, the sponsors are busy protecting their brands and the police has just arrived on the scene. In the meanwhile, Channel4 continues making money, Indian media piggybacks on this trend as usual. This is the reality and I am showing it to you!