Modi will rise, Am(i)en!

“Fear not what is not real, never was and never will be. What is real, always was and cannot be destroyed” Lalit Modi got rather philosophical as he quoted Bhagwad Geeta after his unceremonious suspension in the wake of the IPL drama. He stood all ‘alone’ with virtually everyone gunning for him – out but not down.Things would have been really different if the IPL chief had learnt another truth about ‘by power, for power and to hold back power’, of the modern times and would have kept mum when the UPA ministers were busy making money by ‘sweat’ equity. His stance on the issue not only took the toll of some big names in the UPA government but also raised many fingers over the alleged behind-the-door government involvement in money making. He just tweeted and one of the poster boys of the ruling coalition was dropped from the game; this should have given Modi enough indication that he was next in line to get the boot. It seems the government would not sit back and wait to see few more powerful ministers going the Shashi Tharoor way. Modi’s last words at the IPL final showed that he may be down but certainly not out and would fight back with full spirit and faith in himself. Success is the most difficult thing to achieve in this world and people who believe that money making is easy should go and ask a beggar.Modi has written his own success story. And only time will tell how long it will take for him to emerge from the ashes – like the proverbial phoenix.

IPL fiasco in last lap

It seems the IPL imbroglio will take many more days -- even after the IPL finals are over -- to reach its logical end. After Shashi Tharoor’sresignation from the union government, it seems to be the turn of IPL chief Lalit Modi to feel the heat from politicians who missed the IPL bus -- in other words those who failed to gain directly or indirectly from the league.With politicians like Lalu Yadav demanding banning the game in its present form clearly shows the frustration and pain for not being a 'beneficiary' of the game. One can understand this situation since Lalu who despite ruling the Bihar cricket board for past several decades, could not see his son in the playing eleven in IPL though he was part of the Delhi Daredevils team. Of late, the BCCI had also derecognised the Bihar state cricket body. This could be the backdrop of raising such a demand in the Parliament to at least grab some attention from the media, which after his Rashtriya Janata Dal's Lok Sabha debacle has been giving a short shrift to the maverick Bihar leader. Tharoor who presented his side in the Parliament while pleading innocence spoke about his statesmanship as a politician and his aura but could not explain why his resignation was accepted by the prime minister.The income tax action against Modi smacks of political vendetta from the union government after it suffered a huge embarrassment caused by Tharoor.While only time -- and investigations -- will tell if Lalit Modi is involved in any wrong doing, but one has to give him credit for the new dimension he has given to the game of cricket in India through the IPL. If it was Kerry Packer who brought in and popularised one-day cricket, it is Modi who has introduced the modern ‘private’ version of cricket. Many parents today want their children to become cricketers as the new form of cricket has opened doors for manyyoung sportspersons to fulfil their dream of becoming successfulcricketers.

Quiet escape

Shashi Tharoor, who has resigned as a union minister in the wake of the IPL Kochi controversy, seems to have paved the way for another round of showdown between the government and Board of Control for Cricket in India. After the government made the minister to resign taking a high moral stance, it seems to be ready to gun for IPL chief Lalit Modi. This seems to be really strange that a minister, who used the public office to favour a friend, is treated like a martyr and no further inquiry is being initiated against him, whereas others are being probed.

External affairs

‘External affairs’ seem to be keeping minister of state Shashi Tharoor quite busy these days while not much is known about what exactly he has been doing in his ministry. The minister, who is known for his arrogance and flamboyance, is now complaining of an attack on his privacy. He would have done better if he had thought about the privacy angle before he chose to plunge into electoral politics. Tharoor has decided not to give up and has been matching strokes with Lalit Modi. He is now trying to convert the IPL imbroglio into some kind of a Congress versus BJP issue.It is so very ironical that the minister, who is crying foul over remarks for his interest in one of the owners of the Kochi team, is terming it personal while putting all his professional clout to get through the deal of IPL Kochi team -- the one recently introduced and which is expected to take part in the fourth edition of IPL crickettournament. IPL chief Lalit Modi, who had sought the details of consortium partners for Kochi team, was termed as an opposition man who was trying to malign the image of UPA government. Although Tharoor has also responded well by hurling remarks about Modi’s past and his arrest for alleged possession of cocaine in the United States.It is really difficult to understand if all this is cricket or an ‘external affair’.

Now let the guns do talking

Time seems to be running out for the union government to act against rising Maoist insurgency in the recent times. Many experts attribute the unfortunate killing of 76 CRPF soldiers to the government taking the Naxal threat very lightly and made the security forces ‘sitting ducks’. There can be absolutely no reason to push the armed forces to the jaws of death when there were intelligence reports about the growing power and influence of the Maoists in Chhattisgarh,Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa. After such incident it becomes really difficult to understand the ideology behind any such act, which the Maoist claims. The Naxalite movement that started in India from Naxalbari, a small village in West Bengal, where an extremist section of Communist Party of India (Marxist) led by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal began a violent uprising in 1967. The insurrection started on May 25, 1967, in Naxalbari village when a farmer was attacked over a land dispute. Maoists in the guise of farmers retaliated by attacking the landlords and the violence escalated.The ideology that once fought for the rights of the suppressed peasants and lower classes and tried to create an uprising to overthrow the government and upper classes whom they claimed to be responsible for the poor’s plight has somewhere totally lost its way. Today, most of the funding for the growing Maoist menace comes by oppressing the poor and by unlawful acts, including smuggling of poppy in the tribal areas of Orrisa. This is not the only thing. The Maoist have become a tool in the hands of some neighbouring countries who fund these organisations to push terrorism in India. How else does one describe the huge stockpile of arms and ammunition the Maoists have. May be this is the reason the Maoists view Islamist militancy as a struggle towards national liberation against imperialism and claims it to be an upsurge, which should not be opposed as it is basically anti-US and anti-Imperialist in nature. Time has come to take this threat very seriously. If the Moists are not contained at this point of time, the day is not far when this 'war' will not be confined to the ‘red corridor’ or few states but would engulf the whole country. Killing and exploitation against what the Naxal movement once stood for today stands on the corpses of innocent and poor. It’s high time to hit back and come to the rescue of poor beings. There is little scope for negotiations now. Sometimes the language of the gun has to be replied to in the same coin.