IPL - Facts & Figures

IPL is back with a bang on its own soul and fever is on high time. Last time's neglected teams (Mumbai, Kolkatta) are leading in IPL 3. So this is a game - where there is no strategy, no strong team, no weak team, no big players, no small players, it's all about - "Jiska balla jis din chala uski nikal padi".

But IPL is the ultimate source of full entertainment (Cricket + Bollywood + Glamour). I am really missing it here in Hyderabad. I remember, a group of 6 roommates had a lot of fun in IPL 1 when we enjoyed a live match; these time also we were planning to go. But bunch of thanks to T-guys. "Jai Telangana!!!"

Since last couple of days, I had lot of doubts around profit sharing in IPL matches, how these big buyers get profit. Last night I had some level of research and found few articles and that clicked me to write a blog.

The original concept was from ICL but then BCCI modified it and added some ingredients and made a spicy and delicious food. In 2007, IPL had an auction for 8 teams.

A contract figure for 10 years was something like this.

I was very surprized by looking at this figure how exactly they will earn money out of it. But this is 10 year contract fee to buy franchise. And they don't need to pay this amount at beginning. Every year, they have pay 10% to BCCI.

Here in the profit sharing between BCCI and different teams for Broadcasting revenue, IPL Sponsorship Revenue and Ticket Revenue.

Apart from this, 87.5 % all merchandise revenue, 100% Individual Team Sponsorship revenue, 100% Hospitality Revenue are other source of income.

Here is the balance-sheet of IPL 2. (Figures below in Rs. Crore)

As far as BCCI is concerned, their main source of income is TV rights for 10 years. Before IPL2, it was Rs. 4200 Crore but post IPL2, contract was renegotiated to Rs. 8200 Crore. Sony will pay Rs 670 crore per year for first four years and Rs. 1,100 crore per year for next five years. Before renegotiation of contract, it was Rs. 280 crore/year for first five years and Rs 540 crore for next five years.

As far as Sony is concerned, IPL Advertisement tariff was Rs 4 lakh to 5 lakh / 10 seconds in 2009. (It was Rs 2 lakh to 3 lakh / 10 seconds in 2008).

Waiting for balance-sheet of IPL 3 :-)

Aman ki Asha or Nirasha

On the eve of 1st Jan, 2010, a leading news paper in India (Times of India) and leading news paper in Pakistan (Jang Group) came together and launched a new concept "Aman ki Asha". I remember, 1st Jan's TOI had not any headline on the first page, and instead the big bold letter was showing "Love Pakistan". and then they explained this new concept. At first glance it was looking very weird but the narration was very nice and convincing. On that day, they came up with all kind of statistics, how much % of people in India and Pakistan want peace, how much % of people in India and Pakistan want to stop terrorism and all that. All the figure and graph were showing the green signal and seemed to create an impression that India and Pakistan are just either side of a coin. Sounds good !!!

Since 1st Jan, TOI has dedicated 1/2 pages specifically for Aman ki Asha by posting interviews of big stars, making a publicity of musical events being conducted in several cities by involving indo-pak singers/musicians, posting some historical news and many more. A concept is really good, innovative, convincing, very well executed so far. But my only question is - does it really work?

When all this is happening - different controversies are coming up.

1. On 22nd Jan, Pak PM Mr. Gilani said that "Cant' guarantee peace to India".. he added further... "Pakistan itself is facing Mumbai-like attacks almost on every other day and when we cannot protect our own citizens, how can we guarantee that there won't be any more terrorist hits in India".
2. In IPL 3 auction, all pakistan players have been ignored which created another controversy. And when SRK and Aamir quoted their statements in support of Pakistani players, Shiv Sena today declared them as "2 Idiots".
3. Since long, in Maharashtra, MNS is targeting on North Indians.
4. In Delhi, "If you don't speak Hindi, you are not Indian"
5. Since last couple of months, protesters in AP are demanding a separate state 'Telangana'. And when Manmohan government blinked, very next day, proposals for whopping 9 states have been emerged.

So the point is, we have enough problems within the country itself. We stay in India but we are not Indian from inside. "My State" and "My Caste" are the main root causes which create a big dent on Unity. How long we fight with each other under one roof? Why are we repeating the same mistake which we did a century ago? First of all we need to be a good Indian and then only we can be a good neighbour. This is equally applicable to each Pakistani as well. Once we get a feeling of 'United India', then becoming a good neighbour would be very easy.

According to me, 'Aman ki Asha' should divert their intention and try to make "One United India" first. Each single Indian should feel that the whole country is for every Indian, no matter which state he belongs to, no matter which caste he belongs to, no matter which language he speaks. Mile Sur Mera Tumhara could have been a good step but it was tainted with Bollywoodism.

So what do you think friends? Waiting for your replies.

Fir Mile Sur - More of a disappointment

Last time, it was, 15th August, 1988 and DoorDarshan launched a second anthem of India "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" which was almost on the lip of every Indian. I have grown up by listening this beautiful song frequently and I used to sing the full song in all the languages. And I know this was the case with all of us.

On the eve of 26th January, 2010, almost after 22 years, Times of India and Vodaphone-Essar came together and launched a new version (Fir Mile Sur) on Zoom. I heard the news just a week ago and I was excited about it.

Today I watched (not enjoyed) the full song !!! It was more of a disappointment.

First let me spread the highlight on original version.

• The original song was created in Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad and promoted by Doordarshan.
• It was composed by Ashok Patki and written by Piyush Pandey.
• It was sung in 14 different Indian languages, cast by 14 Movie/TV actors, 4 Singers/Musicians, 9 Sportsmen, 7 others from different fields.
• Total duration was around 6 minutes.

A glimpse on New version

• A new version includes 22 Superstars, 18 renowned musicians, 13 artists/singers and 15 other icons.
• They shot in 13 different cities of India and total it took 2 months.
• Video is created by Kailash Surendranath who also directed the original one 2 decades ago.
• Amitabh Bachhan is the only one who has been part of both the versions.
• 1st version was including Prakash Padukone and 2nd version is including his daughter Dipika Padukone.
• Total duration is around 16 minutes.

I started watching almost half a way while having a morning tea and a newspaper in my hand. And after few minutes, I caught 1st half by changing the channels. Few things I like, few not; It is not upto the expectation. Firstly, as a general sense, people always remember and praise 1st version. When they get the second version, they immediately start comparing it with the first one and adjourn the court by giving the final verdict saying its not like the 1st one. This generally happens. I may be one of them but still let me make my Disappointment-bag empty here; on the blog.

-Ve

1. It was more of a bollywood song.
• Shahid was singing as he was in Kismat Konnection (Bakhuda Tumhi ho...)
• SRK; as usual; was waving his hand in the air as he was in Kal Ho na Ho
• Aamir was sort of Ram Shankar Nikunbh of Taare Zameen Par.
• Sallu was there in Baniyan and flaunting his body.
• Dipika is flaunting her legs.

What the heck??? Are these guys promoting secularism of India or promoting themselves? I couldn't understand.

2. Why didn't they include any Cricketer? Indians are most influenced by Cricket, followed by Movies. So at least they should have included Sachin & Dhoni.

3. How come they missed “Taj Mahal”? Come’on…modernization of the song should not be allowed by removing Taj Mahal from original copy.

4. Of course, a modified version is coming in 2010; so it should be for Gen Next. But taking all the big Bollywood stars and ask them to perform in their own way is not the modernization of such a beautiful second anthem.

5. How about including Ambani, Tata, Birla, Dr. Abdul Kalam, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Vajpayee, some famous child stars (Darsheel Safary, Tanay Chheda, Shriya) and of course most importantly “Aam Aadmi”?

6. If the whole song would have been composed by A.R.Rehman, it could have been far far better. (Remember Vande Mataram?).

+Ve

1. The song starts with beautiful tune given by A.R.Rehman and then Big B expresses himself in his own voice.

2. Priyanka is promoting Girl Education

3. The best part of this new version is – They included “deaf and dumb” children acting “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”. This is something eye-catching in this new version

I may be wrong at some points, but again it is just an individual perception. Feel free to post the comments and give your views.

ORKUT History

I almost forgot that I was writing blogs few months ago. Few of my friends asked me "no new entry on your blog ???" and that clicked me - "Oh man.. I almost stopped contributing on blogspot". So now Nisarg has woken up....

After having a heavy lunch today, I just opened Orkut and I saw Orkut's 6th Birthday logo on its home page. So instead of logging into Orkut, I started doing research on okrut - How orkut came into market and how a baby orkut grew up.

1. Orkut was launched on January 22, 2004 by Google as independent project of Orkut Büyükkökten (Don’t know how to pronounce his LastName).
2. 
   This guy is a Turkish software engineer, obtained Ph.D. (Computer Science) from Standford University and started working in Google in 2002. He developed Orkut as a 20% independent project while working at Google.
3. While previously working for Affinity Engines, he had developed a similar system, InCircle, intended for use by university alumni groups. In late June 2004, Affinity Engines filed suit against Google, claiming that Büyükkökten and Google has launced orkut which is based on inCircle code. The allegation is based on the presence of 9 identical bugs in orkut that was also existing in InCircle
4. At first year, United States had the largest user base. By word of mouth various Brazilians began adopting and inviting more friends. Soon after, Brazil surpassed U.S. in number of users and Orkut started becoming heavily popular in Brazil. As on January 1^st 2010, below is the statistics.
5. 
6. Orkut was very popular in Iran, but the website is blocked by the government. As they say, this is due to national security issues, as orkut users have the ability to spread messages rapidly, but the government says it's due to Islamic ethical issues about dating and match making. To get around this block, sites such as "orkutproxy.xom" (now defunct) were made for Iranian users. Followed by Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain have also taken an action to ban Orkut.
7. Similar kind of actions have been taken in India as well. On October 10, 2006, the Bombay High Court's Aurangabad bench served a notice on Google for allowing a hate campaign against India. This referred to a community on Orkut called 'We Hate India', which initially carried a picture of an Indian flag being burned and some anti-India content. The High Court order was issued in response to a public-interest petition filed by an Aurangabad advocate. Google had six weeks to respond. Even before the petition was filed, many Orkut users had noticed this community and were mailing or otherwise messaging their contacts on Orkut to report the community as bogus to Google, which could result in its removal. The community has now been
8. Prior to the 60th Independence Day of India, Orkut's main page was revamped. The section which usually displayed a collage of photos of various people, showed a stylized Orkut logo. The word Orkut was written in the Devanagiri script and was colored in the Indian national colours. Clicking on the logo redirects to a post by the Orkut India Product Manager, Manu Rekhi
9. According to some media reports, the police were deliberating on the issue of charging the accused under the (Indian) Information Technology Act, 2000 perhaps because Orkut was believed to be a mode of communication for these kind of drug abuses. The Cyber police in India have entered into an agreement with Orkut to have a facility to catch and prosecute those misusing Orkut since complaints are rising
10. By March of 2008 the number of Orkut communities had reached more than 47 million (I don’t know how trustworthy this news is)

While doing all these research, I came to know a very funny story published on some “aaltu-faaltu” site. Worth reading it J

A guy lost his girlfriend in a train accident, but the girl's name nowhere appeared in the dead list. This guy grew up and became IT technical architect in his late 20's, achievement in itself!!

He hired developers from the whole globe and planned to make a software where he could search for his girlfriend through the web. Things went as planned and he found her, after losing millions of dollars and 3 long years!!

It was time to shut down the search operation, when the CEO of Google had a word with this guy n took over this application. This Software made a whopping 1 billion dollars profit in its first year, which we today know as ORKUT JJJ

3 unkown facts about Big B

Just a day back, Big B turned 67. A legendary actor, without him, we cannot even think of Bollywood. A big salute to you sir !!! Jeo hazaaro saal...

I don't know what came in my mind but I thought let me try to find some interesting facts about Mr. Bachchan and I browsed quite a few sites and I came across some interesting facts which I never knew. I picked up 3 and put it in a blog. That way, one new entry added to my blogs after many days. Here you go.....

1. Bachchan was initially named as Inquilab (Inquilab Shrivashtav), inspired from the famous phrase "Inquilab Zindabad, but later he was renamed as "Amitabh" (the light that would never go off).
2. He made an entry in Bollywood due to introduction letter sent by Mrs. Indira Gandhi. And that's how he got a role in "Saat Hindustani" for 5000 Rs.
3. While filming Coolie in 1982, Bachchan was required to fall onto a table and then on the ground in one of the fighting scene with Puneet Issar. Puneet Issar accidently punched him and that resulted abdomen injury, from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. The film was released in 1983.
   The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. (Based on few articles, Bachchan's mom Mrs. Teji asked Mr. Desai to edit the script.) It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. Also the last scene where he stands in the balcony and thank the people, was the real scene, a way to thank the people of India, "Main to chala gaya tha, laut aaya hoon to bus aapki duaon se...."
   

Please feel free to add anything interesting if you know.

Belated Happy Birthday, Amitji :-)

Movies... (Ticket + Popcorn + Cola + DISPRIN)

A long back, one of my teachers had told us one saying "Expectation is mother of all disappointments". So true !!! Well, this time I have trapped Indian Movies. A guy works 14 hrs a day for the whole week, finishes his personal stuff on Saturday and Sunday he thinks that he can get a relief by watching a movie. And after coming out from a theatre room, you can find all different adjectives - 'pathetic', 'horrible', 'boring', 'terrible', 'awful' and finally 'WTF'.

What happened to bollywood? I don't understand. First quarter of 2009 gave nothing. Akshay also started giving all nonsense movies, just like Singh is King. If you start thinking anything starting with 'Why', you will end up by breaking your head into nuts.

Dev D - I was expecting it will be a good entertainer as personally I like Abhay Deol as he is specialist in playing off-bit roles. But this was not upto the standard of his previous movies.

Billu - SRK gave only 2 good movies in whole of his life. Swadesh & Chak de India, otherwise same shah rukh; running in the yellow-red colored fields by wearing black jackets, and that too with typical chopra/johar music...yukkkk..

Luck by Chance - okay. (good in comparison with other movies)

And then there was a big pause in movie release as profit sharing issue fired. All multiplex started demanding 50% share from overall profit earned by producers. Literally they stopped releasing movies. All big heads got together; that too including SRK and Aamir. (Akhir me hari patti ka sawal hai). Somehow they have negotiated with some figure. 1st week 50%, 2nd week 42.5%, 3rd week 35% and 4th week onwards, 30% flat.

The moment I heard this news, I was happy that now all stacked movies will overflow. But it was just like burp after heavy food. Aa dekhen jhara, NewYork, all failed. I was expecting too much from Love Aajkal as Imtiaz Ali had 2 nice baby birth - 'Socha na tha' & 'Jab we met'. Though Love Aajkal was not disappointing, but it was not upto the standard of his previous movies. A typical Saif, stolen kaam-chalu music of Pritam and too much of flip-flop between stories in London/Delhi/Punjab; these 3 factors had weaken the strength of the movie.

But the main reason which clicked me to write this blog was 'Kaminey'. A Vishal Bharadwaj highly created hyped movie and 3-4 star avg rating by all critics. Man, it was so pathetic. The whole movie was in darkness. Too many scenes have been directed with full close-up and that too shacking camera. 'Jo dimag me aaya wo daal diya movie me'. We returned to home with full headache and bunch of gaalis on tip of tongue.

Oh yeah, forgot to tell one thing. I also watched trailers for upcoming movies and decided that better spend money in buying some stuff. !!!

7 things...

Almost 10 weeks and no contribution to blogspot.com. Finally got some time. Huhhh!!!

Since last 2-3 days, I was thinking what can be my new topic and finally I hit the arrow on my findings about US. First I decided to write 7 things I like most and 7 things I dislike most in US, but then I gave up about good things. As there are sooooo many good things here, I cannot pick 7 out of it. If I start writing about good things then it won't be a blog anymore. It will be an online book. So being unfair, I am just writing 7 things which I don't like in US. Well, before commencing, lemme clarify that - when I say "I don't like in US" means ofcousre I am comparing it with India; and again it is individual perception, I may be wrong by looking at someone' perspective. Okay, okay, enough 'bhashan'. Let me start now

1. TubeLight

Yeah... here in apartments, you won't get any tubelight, or holder of tubelight. All you have to use is Lamp. If you really want tubelight, you can have the set up by your own, but as a must default thing, you won't get it in the apartment.

2. Different Terms

Take anything, you will find a different terms & units here. Forget about Mile, gallon, million, billion, ferunhit, freeway. Normal stuff have got a different term. Soft drink becomes soda, cycle becomes bike, restaurant bill becomes check, biscuits becomes cookies, ground floor becomes first floor, dustbin becomes garbage/trash, football becomes soccer, tin becomes can, baby cloth size available in 2T-3T. So the history says, Americans are separated from britishers and they wanted to have everything different from britishers. So it is very difficult to be adjusted in the world of new terms, but it is just a matter of time, but in intial days, you will struggle a lot.

3. Medical

Well... appointment, appointment, appointment.. no matter what disease you are suffering from, you should have appointment. Otherwise go in emergency. And once you go in emergency, minimum they will charge 200-300 bucks which is 6K INR. In 6000 Rs, a guy can very well be hospitalized in semi-special room for 2 days in India. Medical is very very very costly here. So if you don't have insurance here, you are screwed if something goes wrong. That's why people prefer the employers who have the best medical insurance plan for employees. And Microsoft is one of those best employers here who has the 100% coverage for the whole family.

Coming to medical stores, I was so surprised when I went to medical store with my friend who was supposed to take some pain killer medicines. So it's not like India, park your bike near the store and yell to store keeper- "Aey Rajubhai, jara ye dawaai de dena". Pay the money and you are done in 5 mins. Here in US, it takes one hour to get the medicines. Show the prescription, they take the complete information, verify by asking to the hospital who has give that prescription, make a record of the patient with SSN and applied a sticker on medicine box with patient's name and other info. Oh my god !!! It is such a long process. Of course, 911 is the BEST service in case of emergency, but as long as regular check-up is concerned, I like Indian style.

4. Advertisement

Remember... all those best indian commercials.... (All fevicol ads, All Mentos ads, Vodaphone zoo zoo, kya aap close-up karte hai..., Camline-permanent marker, vergin mobile, Pulsar....... & so on). smart, comic and cool ads. But here if I see the ads, they are very descriptive with full information. Basically you won't really enjoy most of the ads. With my biggest surprise, I couldn't find any celebrity in the ads. I don't know why???

5. Food

Pani puri, ice-gola, vada paau, daabeli, maska bun, khaman, faafda, khandavi.... all Indian 'Footpath Food'... missing them a lot... You have a full variety if you eat non-veg. But for vegie, you have very limited option.

6. Saloon

I am not sure about other cities of US, but here in Redmond, mostly you will find chinkis to run a saloon. Here they will ask only 1 thing - "which size, 1,2,3 or 4". They trim your hair based on that size. And they charge $16 + $3 (tip). Lot of my friends are very scared to go because it is very hard to explain them how exactly you want to cut your hair, you want to have long hair from front/back, stylish sidelocks. Doesn't matter. You will come back with only 1 style. In India, hardly they will charge 25-30 Rs and that too with ultimate head massage with taka-tak sound.

7. Bathroom

Generally in the apartment, you will get at least one bathroom with bathtub, but other bathroom will be a standing bathroom. So if you are staying with your roommates and you are not lucky then you may have to use that standing bathroom. It is just 2X2 sq. feet bathroom. You cannot even move your hands freely. No bucket, no mug. So the satisfaction you are getting by sitting in a bathroom and spilling water on your head, you won't get it here. Moreover, here in the bathroom, in the common space there is no drainage. So if you forget to close the curtain while taking bath and if water comes out, then it will be PITA (acronym available at http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=PITA). And I am not talking about toilet, that's universal truth, let's not make this blog dirty. :-)